What Gratitude Was Never Meant to Do

My twin sister raised her cell phone, ready to record. In the next few moments, I might be walking across the elevated stage to the audience’s applause. My heart was pounding so fast I could barely think. My book was one of four finalists in the Young Adult category of a national Christian writing competition. I’d traveled to North Carolina for the awards ceremony, hopeful but trying not to be too hopeful.

They announced third place. Not me. Okay, okay. I’ll take second place. They announced second place. Again, not me. That’s when my sister lifted her phone. There were only two possibilities left: I had won first place—or I wasn’t placing at all.

“And the winner is…” It wasn’t my name. My sister lowered her phone and gently patted my leg. I sat there in disbelief. I’d really thought this might go differently. I realize not winning a writing award is hardly the deepest disappointment a person can experience. Some disappointments alter the course of our lives. This wasn’t one of those. And maybe that’s partly why my reaction surprised me. 

Back in our hotel room that night, I tried to make sense of what had happened. I turned over all kinds of explanations for why my book hadn’t won. But none of them helped me let go of the disappointment. The people around me tried to help. “You’re a winner in my eyes.” “Look how far you’ve come.” “Think about all you have to be grateful for.”

I also gave myself pep talks. You were one of four finalists! Do you know how many authors would love to be in this position? Be grateful. And I was grateful. That was what made the whole thing confusing. I was grateful my book had been recognized. Grateful for the people who had encouraged me along the way. Grateful for the readers who had already told me God was using the book in their lives. But I was still disappointed.

Disappointment Incoming

Sometimes I think Christians respond to disappointment as though we’re working the controls of a submarine. Disappointment incoming! Deploy gratitude! Quick. Count your blessings. Think about everything God has already done. Gratitude becomes our countermeasure against the uncomfortable emotion headed straight toward us.

And to be clear, gratitude is a good thing to deploy. The apostle Paul commands us, “Give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:18). We don’t have to pretend that we like what’s happened or what we’re going through. Often, what we find disappointing in the present hasn’t undone the good we previously experienced. And we can always express thanks for the unchanging character of God and his care for us.

We run into problems with gratitude, though, when we use it as a countermeasure to avoid the thoughts and emotions that disappointment brings to the surface. God was prompting me to sit with the deeper question of why this mattered so much to me, and I couldn’t use my list of blessings to avoid going there with him.

Making Room For Grief

As I reflected, I began to wonder if there is more to disappointment than I first realized. Maybe it can be a kind of grief. Disappointment, after all, begins with hope. We picture something turning out one way, and it doesn’t. Sometimes what we’ve lost isn’t something we once had. It’s something we hoped would be.

As I wrestled with my own disappointment, a phrase from 1 Samuel caught my attention. Saul was Israel’s first king, and Samuel had been part of his story from the beginning. As God’s prophet, Samuel had anointed Saul as king. He had instructed him, prayed for him, and confronted him when he disobeyed.

But Saul repeatedly refused to obey God, and eventually God told Samuel, “I regret that I have made Saul king” (1 Sam.15:11). Samuel was angry, and he cried to the Lord all night. The next morning, he went to confront Saul. By the end of their difficult encounter, Samuel had delivered God’s judgment: the Lord had rejected Saul as king.

Afterward, Scripture simply tells us, “Samuel grieved over Saul” (1 Sam. 15:35). We’re not told exactly what was behind Samuel’s grief. He had watched Israel’s first king take the throne and witnessed his reign unfold. Now Saul’s future as king had been decided.

We don’t know how much time passes before the next chapter. But Samuel’s grief apparently doesn’t disappear quickly. When God speaks to him again, he asks, “How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel?” (1 Sam.16:1). How long? Long enough for God to ask the question.

Maybe I didn’t need to hurry myself forward either.

The Question Gratitude Couldn’t Answer

I already knew what I was grateful for. But I still hadn’t answered the question that had been bothering me: Why did this matter to me so much? I had imagined hearing my name called. I had envisioned what winning might mean for the book. Maybe more people would read it. Maybe an award would open doors I couldn’t open on my own.

But there were other questions I needed to ask. How much had I been relying on winning to signal my success as an author? To validate me as a writer whose words are worth reading? To set me apart in a world where content creators are a dime a dozen? And then there was the most uncomfortable one of all: Did I really believe the message I had spent years writing about—that my worth comes from God, not from the approval or recognition of other people?

Answering those questions was uncomfortable work. It would have been much easier to simply make a gratitude list. I wasn’t about to toss gratitude aside, but I knew it couldn’t answer those questions for me. I wasn’t resisting gratitude; I was resisting using gratitude to end the conversation with God.

When It’s Time to Move Forward

I keep coming back to God’s question to Samuel. “How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel?” If God had only asked Samuel how long he would grieve, we might get the impression that grief on its own has an expiration date. As though there’s some unstated, God-ordained length of time that’s appropriate or acceptable to grieve. Two months have passed, and boom, it’s time to move on. 

What I find fascinating is what’s tied to God’s question of how long Samuel would grieve—the declaration that he had rejected Saul as king. God had made a decision. That outcome was not going to change. 

So, what did that mean for me? I didn’t just “get over it” in a day, a week, or even a month. Grieving didn’t mean I pretended I never wanted the award in the first place. I sat with my sadness. And I had to wrestle honestly with what winning represented for me. 

Practicing gratitude didn’t mean that I made “be grateful” a repeated mantra. But I didn’t stop giving thanks. I thanked God for his goodness to me—then and now. I also had to acknowledge I couldn’t change what happened. The award was decided. At some point, I had to turn to him and say, What now, God?

Maybe you aren’t able to ask God that question yet. You may be grieving what might have been or working through what your disappointment has brought to the surface. While I encourage you to sit with your disappointment a while, don’t let it be all-consuming either. Bring both the disappointment and the gratitude to God. Let him ask the questions you’d rather avoid and trust him with the outcomes you wanted but didn’t get.