The After Sermon /// How do we give thanks when life is still hard?

Welcome to The After Sermon by Plum Creek Church.

This bite-sized discussion is where we get to sit down with our communicators and ask a few follow up questions connected to the weekend message, unpack it on a deeper level, and explore how it all relates to our journey of following Jesus more fully.

In this episode of The After Sermon, Eric sits down with Michele Cushatt to continue the conversation from her message on prayers of thanksgiving. Together, they unpack the important difference between being thankful for every circumstance and being thankful in every circumstance.

Michele reflects on why gratitude is not about denying pain or pretending suffering is good, but about anchoring ourselves to a reality bigger than what we can see right now. Through her own experience with cancer, loss, and permanent physical limitations, she shares how the hope of resurrection changes the way we face the brokenness of the present. Eric and Michele also talk about why remembering God’s past faithfulness matters so much, how easily we forget what God has already done, and how practices like storytelling, prayer, and reflection help tether us again to what is true.

This conversation is also available on our YouTube channel along with the full message that this discussion is based on.

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@plumcreekchurch

You can learn more about Plum Creek Church by visiting our website as well.

Website: https://plumcreek.church/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everybody. So glad you're joining us at the after sermon where we get a chance to sit down with this week's communicator and talk about maybe a few things that didn't make it in the message. Either way, uh we are so excited because we get to sit with Michelle Cushat. I always did I say that closer? I was listening to a whole interaction where I still can't get that last name. It's very friendly.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

I think of it in terms of a a range of faithful options. Like there's a range. I like that. As long as you land in the range, I think it counts.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Gosh, that sounds like faith. A range of faithful options.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Um plus I married into it, so I don't even know if I say it.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Okay. Well, that's that's fair. Well, this message was amazing. We're in a series on prayer, and uh we are now in the fourth part of the message prayers of Thanksgiving. And you said something in your message I would love for you to just explore. And I think you have personal experience with this. The concept of being thankful in versus being thankful for, right? So talk talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Well, this is a really critical and important distinction. Um, for a long time I thought we had to be thankful for all circumstances. So there's this idea that anything that comes to us goes through God first. So we need to be thankful for everything that happens, right? If he's sovereign, right? This gets into all kinds of theodicy and crazy hard stuff. Um, and so there was a sense of we need to be thankful for. And I was like, wait a second, no, no, that's not necessarily true. I don't need to be thankful for um the horrors of sex trafficking around the world. I don't have to be thankful for child abuse. I don't have to be thankful for, but that also means I don't have to be thankful for the horrors of cancer and how it ravaged my body from head to toe, inside and out. I mean, that is not what God's asking me to do. But what he is asking me to do is to be thankful in those circumstances, uh, out of an awareness of a reality that even trumps this reality. The fact that there is a kingdom of God that has come, is come, and is coming, right? And that reality should change our perspective on everything because that means that although cancer is a huge piece of my story, and even though I will live with permanent disabilities as a result of it, it is not my ultimate reality because there will come a day that this body will be made completely new and everything that's broken will be solved and fixed and renewed. And I won't have a lisp anymore, and I will be able to taste again. Like it is a bodily resurrection that we will experience, and that that reality actually trumps the current one. That means whatever I'm dealing with now, as awful as it is, it is temporary.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

That's really key. I I think Dallas said it this way. We oftentimes believe ourselves we live this way, that we are temporary spiritual beings having a permanent physical experience when in fact we are the opposite. Yes. We are permanent spiritual beings having a temporary physical experience. And yet it's still hard to live out of that.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Oh, it is so hard to live out of that. However, it's really, I mean, it's a critical uh growth edge, I think, for all of us, because if we want to be people who are not living at the uh other end of the lease of a crazy life that goes you know insane all the time. If we want to be people who can live steady and secure and stable and confident and strong, it requires us to be tethered to something that is bigger than just us and our existence.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Wow. That's huge.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

That's huge. If I am, I said it like this in one of the books I wrote that a boat anchored to itself is not anchored at all.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

That's a great metaphor. Oh, I've done some boating.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

I know. Like if I just anchor myself to myself, I am then at the like the whims of whatever happens today, right? Um, and I've done that. Like, and this is what our culture tells us is that you need to look within yourself for your peace. And oh, you know, all of this kind of like, you know, we are self-sufficient, and everything we need to survive and thrive exists with us. And I'm sorry, I've I've tried that bag of tricks and it doesn't work. So a boat anchored to itself is not anchored at all. We need to be anchored to something that is bigger and stronger and more steadfast, more firm than we are, and only then will we be secure.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

What have you learned about the anchoring process? How do you do that?

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Well, for me personally, yeah, that process involved doing it the wrong way a lot of times until I got tired of the really terrible results. Yeah. Like I have anchored, I I am, I think all of us as humans, we will anchor ourselves to whatever is the closest and easiest and most convenient.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

And God keeps saying, you can almost hear Jesus as I'm talking. I can always hear him say, Come to me. All you who are weary and heavy laden, come to me. All of you who are worn out from trying to anchor yourself to the wrong things. Attach yourself to me, learn from me, and you will find rest for your souls.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Well, and that's not uh an anchor in and of itself is not permanent either, right? Like you almost have to um be re-anchoring. You have to be all the time, right? There's a pressure.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Because during circumstances, I mean we can take that metaphor. All metaphors break down at some point, but we can take that metaphor when a storm happens, it loosens and it gets in. So we have to once again, wait, wait, what do I know is true? And that's where spiritual formation comes in, right? The formative practices of going, wait a second, I need to preach to myself again what I know is true. What do I know is true? And that's why uh in the message I talked about Psalm 27, I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I don't feel that in the moment, but I keep saying that over and over again, knowing that the more I say it, um, the more that I believe it, the more that it actually becomes true. I will see the goodness of the Lord. I believe it, I believe it, I will see the goodness of the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Well, and you said something in the message I think is important that is not just delusional thinking. There is a process by which we remember that affirms the truth that we will see his goodness. Talk a little bit about the importance of looking back at what God has done in your life as part of this process.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

Yeah, and uh I I said this in the message that our problem isn't a lack of experience with God's faithfulness, it's our inability to remember God's faithfulness. I can speak from my own experience. I mean, I can forget God's faithfulness in the morning by the time I go to bed at night. Oh, yeah. Like for sure. I mean, it's amazing how circumstances can make me utterly blind to what happened earlier. Yeah, like we forget God's previous faithfulness the moment we need um something new. Yeah, right? We have such short attention spans. And so the practice of remembering actually goes all the way back to Old Testament. I can't remember. I think um it's in Exodus, it's in Deuteronomy, but uh God says, when you get to the land that I have given you, the promised land, when you get there and you plant your crops and you harvest all these fruits and all this abundance, do not forget where you came from, right? So from the very beginning, God knew that our biggest problem is our forgetfulness at times.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Yeah, right. That's so well, and I mean, biologically speaking, we're wired to remember things that harm us disproportionately more than the good things. So I think there's a part that you go, well, yeah, of course, because it if it's bad, that's why one bad email will make you forget the hundreds of good shits. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if someone says, doesn't matter that someone said you have a really nice shirt on. If the next person says, boy, where'd you get that shirt?

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Those are all lousy shirts.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

I mean, well, we're wired this way so much so um because I know how I'm wired. I literally have a tattoo here that says remember and forget. And I see it in the morning because I think I forget all the things I should remember, and I remember all the stuff I ought to forget, right? So I I think that is the human condition, and I think it's such an important It's a practice, it's a practice, it's a practice, and really, you know, that's why we went through remembering, celebrating, anticipating.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

I mean, we really do have to practice Thanksgiving, and the practice of remembering is such a key point, a key anchor point for the other two. Like we have to be able to go back and remember, and when we can't remember, we need to find whatever tools or resources we can to help drug our memory. Um, things like photos and calendars and talking. Yeah, one thing I think we've missed in our modern context is the gift of storytelling within a family context, like telling stories of God's faithfulness.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

I want to talk more about that, but guess what? We're out of time. We're out of time. But you did. I mean, these tools really matter, even things like the prayer guide and the prayer practices. This is why we're doing these things. So um, I'm so great grateful for you. Thanks for teaching us. Thank you. Great, great word. Um, but we're out of time. If you want to hear the whole message, uh just go to your podcast platform of choice, and I promise you, it will be there. You can hear the entirety of the message. Thanks again. Grace and peace. We'll see you next time.