What is it about the sun that makes us feel good, besides of course, giving us good ‘ole vitamin D. But when the sun hides during the cold, grey, January and February months, we tend to stay inside. Staying under a warm afghan doesn’t help us long-term. Each of us has to come out and face 2024. God didn’t intend for us to hibernate like bears.

And during those darker, colder days, sometimes, it’s our insides that suffer–those thoughts, feelings and scar-filled memories. I have six scars on my physical body. The one above my left eye, not as visible now, occurred when my younger self fell on the sharp edge of cement steps below a porch. The two above my right eye, only viewable up close, came from another head injury I suffered after choosing to get off of a two-wheeled scooter too soon because the speed scared me as I flew down the hill in front of our house without a helmet.

And the weird looking area on my left shoulder, that is now meshed with freckles, is the aftermath of skin cancer removal. The most visible is the eight-inch one that travels down my chest, a reminder of life-saving open heart surgery. The fifth and final scar is very small, also somewhat hidden, on the underside of my right knee. It’s where the surgeon pulled healthy arteries from my leg to replace diseased ones around my heart.

There’s not enough room here to write about my emotional scars. A few paragraphs could never describe the depth, just like one conversation is not enough when we empty our souls to a friend, therapist, or even God. That’s one of the reasons I wrote my memoir, No Hugs Allowed.

When I learned how Canadian author Ann Voskamp moved past reliving her emotional scars, it encouraged me to start the discipline of thanking God for the adverse cards that He allowed to be dealt to me. In One Thousand Gifts, she tells what she did many years after she witnessed the crushing death of her sister Aimee, by a delivery truck in the front yard of her parent’s farm.

She kept a spiral notebook on her kitchen counter and during the day she would write down whatever her eyes saw, thanking God for the simplest to the grandest. Before long she had written 1000 things to be thankful for. But why? What is the real reason behind that activity?

“Facing the abandonment of God Himself (does it get any worse than this?), Jesus offers thanksgiving for even that which will break Him and crush Him and wound Him and yield a bounty of joy.” (pg. 36)

Voskamp continues by explaining in detail what the Greek root of “to save” means. “Sozo means salvation. It means true wellness, complete wholeness. To live sozo is to live the full life. Jesus came that we might live life to the full; He came to give us sozo. And when did the leper receive sozo-the saving to the full, whole life? When he returned and gave thanks. I lay down my pen. Our very saving is associated with our gratitude.” (pg. 38-39)

What is it about the beginning of a new year that makes us want to be better, do better, and live fuller lives? At the end of 2023 I read a suggestion on Instagram, a practical way to live a life or year filled with more gratitude.

The specific instructions sounded simple. Find an empty jar. Once a week, write down on a small piece of paper what you are thankful for that occurred in the preceding week. Fold the piece of paper. Put it in the jar and continue this activity once a week during the year. At the end of the year empty all the notes. Read each one and relish over all the moments of gratitude.

Why not begin 2024 with the simple activity of thanking God on a piece of paper and keeping those words of gratitude in a jar, one that awaits your hands to open it at the end of 2024.

Here is one fact that we can all be thankful for. When we die and enter the real-time presence of God, we won’t have any more scars, physical or emotional. As the group Casting Crowns wrote, from their song Scars in Heaven, “The only scars in heaven are on the hands that hold you now.” Praise the living Lord! Now, go find a jar.

Click below to be encouraged by the lyrical video: Scars in Heaven

pictures courtesy of “Nelson and his Nikon” and winter pic courtesy of pexels.com