This past July, Jonathan and I went to Colorado together while my sister and parents kept our kids. We were so excited to get away for an entire week together, something we hadn’t done for years. I began spending hours researching different hikes and we settled on the goal of tackling Pike’s Peak together.

We arrived Tuesday night and went full steam ahead Wednesday and Thursday, visiting Rocky Mountain National Park, St. Mary’s Glacier, Mount Blue Sky, and hitting up some delicious local eateries.

Unfortunately, Jonathan started getting sick on Thursday and became worse throughout the week, so we wisely canceled our strenuous hiking plans and exchanged some sightseeing for extra time at the hotel so he could nap.

As he and I don’t go away by ourselves very often, I had a verrrry hard time with this turn of events. Since I’m a Christian and believe in the sovereignty of God, I knew God could have changed the timing of this sickness or just not allowed it to happen in the first place. But he didn’t. And though it wasn’t a life-threatening illness, I was still less than pleased.

During our last full day—the day we were “supposed” to be hiking Pike’s Peak—Jonathan encouraged me to get outside and go for a run while he rested. Being the wise husband, “living in knowledge with his wife” that he is, he recognized my boundless energy was unmatched with his sickness, so I went outside to blow some of it off. As I ran, I asked God to help me be thankful. In response, the Spirit impressed this on my heart:

Stop asking me to make you thankful and start giving thanks.

So I did. I thanked God for the details of our trip, even the sickness I didn’t like. I was honest with him that I wasn’t actually thankful (in case he was having a hard time detecting my true feelings underneath my words. jkjk), but that I wanted to be obedient to give thanks even when I wasn’t 100% there.

We left Colorado the next day and returned back to New Hampshire the day after that.

Fast forward to yesterday.

I was browsing through pictures of the last few months to share a few highlights in my monthly newsletter when I came across pictures from our time in Colorado. For the very first time my prominent, overwhelming thoughts were ones of gratefulness. Not grateful because I knew it was the right thing to do even though I didn’t totally feel it, but genuine, deep down thankfulness and a feeling of undeserved favor from God who gave me the opportunity to go away, to love and take care of my husband, to see beautiful sights like I had never seen before, to make memories together, to practice worshipping him and living by faith by practicing thankfulness even when I wasn’t feeling it.

A thankful spirit might not come naturally and it rarely comes immediately. But God makes everything beautiful in his time. Even my heart.

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

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P.S. Two God moments…

1. I had coffee with a friend before our trip and she asked how she could pray for me. I asked her to pray that I would be thankful. I didn’t know, but God did.

2. When Jonathan and I first arrived in CO, we rode a shuttle bus to pick up our rental car. All was silent on the bus for the first several minutes. Then randomly over the bus speakers, the chorus from “10,000 Reasons” began playing. “Bless the Lord, oh, my soul! Oh, my soul! Worship his holy name. Sing like never before, Oh, my soul! I’ll worship your holy name.” I’m just gonna go out on a limb here and say my God is good at details.

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