Christian Living

Thanksgiving in the Both-And

It’s my favorite time of year… and I’m feeling a little bittersweet about it.

My birthday always falls within the Thanksgiving week, and my joke has always been that everyone has to be extra thankful for me! This year I’m turning twenty-five, and I’ve been feeling mixed emotions about being halfway to fifty.

I’ll admit, it’s easy for me to focus on all the things I wanted to be or do by age twenty-five and feel disappointed. Somehow this milestone of twenty-five makes all those unfulfilled dreams feel like they’re written in bold, italicized, and underlined as I’ve tried to forget my longings and tried to rejoice with those who rejoice without reservation.

One night this summer, I was expressing my weariness and hurt to the Lord as I lay in bed, tears threatening to break their dam, when these words spoke to my heart:

God is still good, even when your dreams don’t come true.

The Lord has been so good to me, but some days the ache in my soul for what I desire compared with my reality can feel unbearable. How can I have so much joy and so much pain in the same breath? I’ve found myself many times this year truly excited for others’ new seasons while simultaneously grieving that I’m not sharing it with them, and I’ve wondered, am I wrong to feel this way? To live in the both-and?

That night, as I lay in bed, the Lord brought this Scripture to mind:

Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Romans 12:15

You can live in the both-and.

It doesn’t have to be rejoicing only or weeping only; one is not mutually exclusive of the other. The Lord is big enough to hold us in our simultaneous rejoicing and weeping.

In my favorite movie, Facing the Giants, the main characters struggle with infertility. And at one point the husband asks the wife, “If the Lord never gives us children, will you still love Him?” And when she receives a negative pregnancy test, through tears she prays, “I will still love You.”¹

And in this season, this prayer has become mine: no matter what, I will still love you. I don’t know what the future holds for me. All my dreams may not come true. But God has still been and will always be good. So, I will still love Him. Through joy and pain, through the happy tears and sad tears, through things better than my wildest dreams and unfulfilled longings. He is so worthy. And He is enough.

In honor of Thanksgiving and my 25th birthday, here are 25 things I’m thanking God for this year:

My family
My friends
Becoming an auntie!
Launching my ministry, Kelsey Lee Writes LLC
Successfully growing green beans and spaghetti squash in my garden this summer
Returning to Iceland after eighteen years
My daisies and roses
Road tripping with my grandparents this fall
Serving in children’s ministry at my church
Finding an agent for my devotional book
My Bible study group
Fall leaves
Being challenged to grow in my faith as I study for my theology project
The different seasons that display God’s creativity and consistency
Coffee and writing days
Sanctification through the Word and prayer
A job where I get to work with little ones
The ocean
Our veterans (especially my dad and Grandpa Steve)
My HOPE team and getting to serve local foster families
Hiking with friends
Finding inspiration for my current work-in-progress (this book was sitting for a while without any ideas, and now I’m almost finished with the rough draft! Praise the Lord!)
Talk-to-text technology that makes writing easier!
Salvation through Jesus Christ
The goodness and grace of God