Thankful for What Came After

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be thankful, grateful, and blessed.

Not just thankful for the easy things. Not just grateful when life goes according to plan.

I’ve been thinking about the blessings that sometimes come disguised as disruption.

A while back, our house flooded.

And it was awful.

Our home became a construction zone. Things were torn apart. Our routines were disrupted. There were decisions to make, messes to clean up, people coming in and out, and that strange feeling of living in your own house while it doesn’t quite feel like home anymore.

At the time, I certainly wasn’t standing in the middle of it thinking, “What a blessing.”

I just wanted my house back.

But now I can look around my kitchen and say something I never thought I would say:

I’m thankful for the flood.

Not because the flood itself was good.

But because of what came after.

Now I have a kitchen that works.

It’s livable.

It’s updated.

It isn’t leaking.

Water isn’t quietly soaking into places it shouldn’t be, damaging walls or creating bigger problems underneath the surface.

Something that desperately needed attention was uncovered and repaired.

And somehow, out of a season that felt destructive, something beautiful was built.

I think life is like that sometimes.

There are things we would never choose for ourselves. Seasons we would gladly skip. Problems we wish had never knocked on our door.

But sometimes those very things expose what was already broken.

They make room for rebuilding.

And one day, we find ourselves standing in a space that feels lighter, safer, healthier, more open, more beautiful than the one we had before.

Sometimes that happens in the physical world.

Sometimes God rebuilds something in us.

And sometimes He does both.

That is part of why I designed the Thankful, Grateful, Blessed Journal.

It is simply a place to write things down.

The obvious blessings.

The little things.

The answered prayers.

The ordinary days.

And maybe even the things you are not thankful for yet.

Maybe you write:

The flood.

The loss.

The season that exhausted me.

The thing that didn’t work out.

The door that closed.

The mess I never wanted to walk through.

You don’t have to pretend you are grateful for it while it is hurting.

Just write it down.

Because someday you may come back to that page and realize,

“Oh. I see it now.”

You may see where God protected you.

Where He redirected you.

Where something hidden was finally uncovered.

Where He strengthened something in your heart.

Where He created a beautiful new space in your life.

And there is something deeply worshipful about recognizing that.

To look back at something hard and say,

“God, I see what You did there.”

“You were with me.”

“You brought me through it.”

“You made something beautiful out of something I never would have chosen.”

That is gratitude.

Not pretending the hard thing didn’t hurt.

Not rewriting the story and calling pain pleasant.

It is recognizing that the painful chapter was not the final chapter.

And I imagine there must be something precious to God about His children noticing.

Noticing the provision.

Noticing the growth.

Noticing the rebuilding.

Noticing that He never left.

Maybe worship sometimes sounds like a song.

Maybe sometimes it sounds like a prayer.

And maybe sometimes worship is sitting quietly with a pen and writing:

I didn’t understand this when I was walking through it, Lord. But I see Your hand in it now. Thank You.

So what would you write in your journal?

What are you thankful for today?

And what hard thing from your past can you look back on now and see differently?

Write it down.

Because sometimes the blessing isn’t that the flood never came.

Sometimes the blessing is finally being able to see what God built after it.