Is gratitude really appropriate - or even possible - in every circumstance?

Are we supposed to be grateful for a school bus accident in which 20 children are killed or when a tidal wave sweeps away whole cities? Are we supposed to be grateful when the doctor tells us we have cancer or when we learn that a spouse has been unfaithful? For that matter, are we supposed to give God thanks when, apart from specific crosses, our life overall seems to be more demanding than we can bear, when nothing seems to be going right, when the only constants are confusion and failure?

Are we supposed to deny the sorrow and suffering we experience? Are we supposed to carry on as if nothing has happened, or is it okay to acknowledge our pain, even if this seems to make gratitude difficult? Is it permissible to wonder what God is doing in all this and ask how pain and suffering - especially the pain and suffering of the innocent - can be reconciled with God's goodness?

First of all, we are not called to deny the reality of pain and suffering and pretend that it isn't there. It is there. It is real. And we are called to live in the real world, a world that includes suffering as well as joy.

This doesn't mean that the events and situations that give us pain are really good, that the death of innocent people is fundamentally a blessing, or that God takes pleasure in someone's long death from disease. These are all bad things, and we are permitted, even expected, to look on them as such.

Where, then, is there room for gratitude?

Over the years, I have become more conscious of the theological usefulness of the phrase "in spite of." I have come to see that forgiveness, for example, means loving a person who has injured me "in spite of" the real injury that person has inflicted on me. Likewise, we can say that God is involved in disaster and disease and other human suffering "in spite of" the real pain these events bring. In ways that we can't understand or appreciate, God's love is active in all these matters, bringing real good out of real evil. How does God do that? Why does God do that? We don't know. But we do know that God's goodness is greater and deeper and more powerful than any suffering we can experience, and that it is working in spite of the power of pain and evil that we experience.

No matter what is happening, God is in it somewhere. We may not know where or how, but no matter what the adversity, God is in it somewhere, loving, guiding, sustaining us. We don't need to know all the details of God's intention or action. What we do need to know is that God is more powerful and more pervasive than the suffering we experience. God is in it somewhere, and to the extent that God is in it, there is goodness in it.

Where does that leave gratitude?

We are not called to give thanks for the evil, the suffering or the incomprehensible torment that all of us encounter at some time in our lives. Evil is evil, and evil is not good, and offering thanks for evil is simply wrong.

Yet there is room for gratitude in the context of wrong and suffering. What we offer thanks for is not the wrong and suffering but the hidden goodness of the Lord that is somehow active behind it. We are grateful for the good that is operative in spite of the suffering. We express our thanks that God is in it somewhere, even if we can't understand where or how.

Giving thanks in time of adversity is really an act of faith, an expression of trust in the omnipotent and all-embracing love of the Lord for His creatures, even when we are unable to perceive that love.

Is it appropriate to give thanks in time of tribulation? Indeed it is appropriate, but we have to be clear about what we are giving thanks for. We are giving thanks not for the suffering we experience, but for the love and generosity of the Lord that somehow lie behind it.

When we find ourselves in a time of trial, it's okay to tell God that we're in pain, that we are afraid, that we are confused. In response, God says to us, "I'm here. Trust me." What we offer thanks for, then, is the strength and the reassurance that God offers us in spite of the suffering, strength and reassurance that have their source in the fact that God is in all this somewhere.

Gratitude is not always easy. Sometimes we have to focus it very carefully. But gratitude is always appropriate, even when it's hard.

We can't always understand what's going on. We can't always see the purpose in what God allows to happen. But we can always find a way and a reason to give thanks to the Lord if we are grateful believers.