When I was a young girl, my family frequented a farm produce stand down the road from my house. The produce there was beautiful, bright, and bursting forth throughout the summer and fall: Shiny red strawberries, sweet yellow corn, juicy orange muskmelons.
Of course, for all the succulent beauty of these gems of the land, my heart was captured most by the giant caramel apples the farmer’s wife made every fall.
Lined up in straight lines, these perfectly crafted treats stood like uniformed soldiers in a clear case next to the cashier.
Every time we went to the farm stand, I stood in awe of those nut-studded creations, silently hoping my mother would somehow see my dire need for her to buy one. And one time when she did, my eyes grew wide with wonder as the cashier opened the case and carefully took out the delicious miracle on a stick — for me!
What amazement, what speechless thankfulness filled my heart as I held that sugary treasure close to my face and marveled that such a special treat had been gifted to me.
My mother had given — especially to me! — the very treasure for which I had so ardently, silently yearned.
In my simple child’s heart — with the crispness of the tart caramel apple I bit into — I understood with complete clarity the meaning of gratitude: The overwhelming joy that bound me up with love to my gentle and generous mother.
Muddled gratitude
But time goes on. We age. And life experiences can muddle that clarity. Our childlike gratitude competes with feelings of entitlement as teenagers, perhaps.
Then, as adults, the bridge of gratitude that connects us to Our Lord weathers with time and hardships that can harden our hearts and make it more difficult for us to remember the simplicity of true gratitude.
With hardship comes suffering that is sometimes silent. And over time, in quiet suffering gratitude can be difficult to muster. But it is only through learning to unite suffering to Our Lord’s own, to glimpse an understanding of His life-giving sacrifice for us, that we can regain the clarity of childlike gratitude.
Fruits of growth
In His own loving way, Our Father knows how to hand-pick and give to me all things to help me grow closer to Him: Not only gifts both longed for and unexpected, but also tribulations, trials, and opportunities to practice virtue.
These are the fruits of interior growth, the treasures He carefully selects for my own good so that I may see how I must turn to Him each day like a small yearning child with outstretched palms and simple thankfulness.
Just as a child trusts her parents to give her all she needs, so too must I be firm in my foundational trust that Our Father will give me all I need, including ways to help me grow.
“Get used to lifting your heart to God, in acts of thanksgiving, many times a day. Because he gives you this and that. Because you have been despised. Because you haven’t what you need or because you have,” said St. Josemaria Escriva (The Way #268).
“Because he made his Mother so beautiful, his Mother who is also your Mother. Because he created the sun and the moon and this animal and that plant. Because he made that man eloquent and you he left tongue-tied . . .” he said. “Thank him for everything, because everything is good.”
Praise God in suffering
“To suffer and to be happy although suffering, to have one’s feet on the earth, to walk on the dirty and rough paths of this earth and yet to be enthroned with Christ at the Father’s right hand, to laugh and cry with the children of this world and ceaselessly sing the praises of God with the choirs of angels — this is the life of the Christian until the morning of eternity breaks forth,” said St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein).
Just as the tartness of apples pricks my memory of childhood gratitude, the bittersweetness of suffering in adulthood revives that same gratitude.
Striving for crisp childlike clarity, we can practice giving Our Father thanks for all things, especially for our difficulties, the tart fruits of suffering that can draw us even closer to Him.
Julianne Nornberg, mother of four children, is a member of St. John the Baptist Parish, Waunakee.