Military Wellness Collective

EP 15: How Practicing Thanksgiving Builds Real Contentment And Joy

• Military Wellness Collective

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Gratitude is simple to say and hard to live, especially when the calendar says “celebrate” and your reality says “not yet.” We open up about what a thankful life looks like in real time—during deployments, on duty during the holiday, or when the barracks feel empty—and why Scripture calls thanksgiving God’s will for us, not a seasonal slogan.

We unpack the quiet link between contentment and gratitude and how breaking the grumble loop can change a unit, a home, and a heart. John the Baptist’s call to soldiers to be content still hits home. So does Paul’s charge to give thanks in all circumstances. With stories from military life, we connect thanksgiving to endurance: when stress stacks up and comfort runs thin, gratitude becomes a steadying force that keeps perspective clear. We offer practical tools you can use today—morning and evening thankfulness practices, extending your timeline to spot God’s faithfulness, and simple questions that shift a conversation from complaint to hope.

Scripture anchors the journey. Lamentations 3 teaches us to call past mercies to mind; Psalm 23 reminds us that God is with us in the valley and the green pastures; the Great Commission assures us of Christ’s presence always. We draw a helpful line between honest lament and grumbling, and we talk about how to help someone reach the “but God” moment—with friendship, Scripture, and, when needed, biblical counseling. Finally, we turn gratitude outward: Who are we thanking, and for what? That question turns a holiday mood into a living faith and opens gentle doors for gospel conversations.

If this encouraged you, share it with a friend in the military community, subscribe for more, and leave a quick review telling us one thing you’re thankful for today. Your words might be the lift someone else needs.

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SPEAKER_00:

Hey y'all. Welcome back. I'm Brittany Brown. I'm going to be your host today. We just want to say happy Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_03:

Happy Thanksgiving. All right.

SPEAKER_00:

On the week where we set aside to give thanks when every day as Christians we should be living a thankful life filled with gratitude and just joy in who the Lord is. But this week is exciting because we get to celebrate and be really intentional in it. So as always, I'm joined by our friends Kelly and Brian O'Day and my husband Joshua. And today we are going to talk about a life of Thanksgiving. That's going to be our theme of the podcast today. Like, what does that look like to have a life marked by Thanksgiving? So that we when we come to this week every year, we can really focus on that. I'm just going to kick us off with reading. All scripture read on this podcast episode is going to be from the ESV unless otherwise noted. So I'm just going to start us off in 1 Thessalonians 5. I'm going to start in 16. It says, Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the spirit. This passage hangs on our wall. I love this passage. The only part I don't like about my Hobby Lobby sign is it cuts off verse 19. Do not quench the spirit. Oh man. And I think that's important. When we don't live this out, when we're not rejoicing, always praying without ceasing and giving thanks, we actually quench the spirit of God. And so I just love this passage. Give thanks in all circumstances. And I just want to ask, does anybody have any thoughts on that? Or do you guys have scripture that you want to read? And then we'll just kind of bring it in.

SPEAKER_02:

There's one part of that verse that we just want to like pull on real quick.

SPEAKER_00:

Pull the thread.

SPEAKER_02:

So it also says, for this is the will of God for our life. So so often, so many people are running around going, is this God's will for my life? Is this God's will? What's God's will for this? This verse specifically tells you this is God's will for you. Yeah. Be thankful in all circumstances. I just think that's it's amazing how clear it is for that. So we we just we should probably pay if pay attention to it.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that in all circumstances. I feel like on the mountaintop, sometimes it's we forget that it's from the Lord. Sometimes we want to take credit for it as it are as our own, you know. And then in the valley, we focus on the hard. So it's just so good for me in both places to spend that time. And that's how I start my quiet time like just thanking the Lord for different things to and I end my quiet time that way too. Just in my journaling, like I end with that. And it just helps me remember, like, wow. I mean, I've thought that so many times as I'm writing. Like God, you have blessed me in so many ways and done so much in my life. As I even poured out hard things, you know, just kind of recenters me to what God's done.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and biblically, the opposite of Thanksgiving, which is all too common in each of our hearts, but also in our society, is grumbling.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

And especially in the military community, especially, you know, I've I've heard it say if the Marines are not complaining, then something's really wrong. Right? Like complaining is like just normal. And so the opposite would be grumbling. I also think there's there's this concept in the scripture. So thankfulness is literally all over the Bible. Maybe we'll we'll talk about some Thanksgiving psalms here in a second, which those would be great this week in your quiet time. Just hit some Thanksgiving psalms. But this concept of contentment really kind of goes hand in hand. Because if I'm always like wanting something else, if I'm always coveting something else, and I'm not content with what the Lord's given me, then I'm not gonna be thankful for what the Lord's given me. And so and and it's interesting you might, I don't know. So when John the Baptist is forerunning Jesus, and he is telling people to repent and be ready for the Messiah to come, in Luke chapter three, some people start asking, like, Well, what should we do? Like, we need to repent, whatever. And so the crowds ask John the Baptist. This is in Luke chapter three. The crowds ask, What should we do? And John the Baptist answered, Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise. The task collectors, they ask a question. And then finally, soldiers, soldiers, people in the military, they also ask him, and we, what shall we do? And he said to them, Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages. So when soldiers are preparing to meet Jesus, and they're asking, What should we do? There's only two things. Don't take money from people by lying and uh intimidation and threats. And number two is be content with your wages. And so there is something about contentment that soldiers specifically, people in the military, struggle with. And so we need to learn contentment, we need to learn gratitude, we need to learn thanksgiving. Like all of these words, to me, it's just kind of a muddied mess in my head. I'm sure there's some differences, but it's a good muddy mess where it all goes together contentment, thanksgiving, gratitude. And the opposite is grumbling.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, Philippians 2 talks about grumbling. Like, yeah, and do I think it says something like do these things without grumbling and yeah, do all things without grumbling or complaining. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's not the mark of a believer. We're actually telling God, like, hey, yeah, you what you're doing, I don't like it. This isn't sufficient, and I want something else and I have a better way, which we probably don't say that out loud in the moment, but deep down in the recesses of our heart, that's what's happening if we're not thankful. I want to talk a minute about practicing gratitude in some hard seasons. Like this is Thanksgiving, and we're all here together, and we can rejoice and be excited about that. And it's easy for us to give thanks in those circumstances, but what about when your husband's deployed? What about when you're when you are the one deployed? And we just did an episode on traditions before this episode, and you're missing out on all of it. How do you walk through that? And what do you focus on to remain content and thankful?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. So I think first and foremost, we have to realize if we're only thankful when everything's going our way, that's not really displaying anything to the world. That's not really showing anything that's different than the world. It is in those hard seasons that we're really displaying something to the world and that God can really meet us in that place to show us that He is enough for us and He's given us what we need in that season and in that time. And so when it's difficult to look for things to be thankful for, that's really the best time to press in and be thankful.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah, I just thought of an example here, but this may actually just fall off into nothingness and not actually connect very well. So prepare yourselves for this. There's a couple different courses in the military where it's actually like an assessment for progression into the course. So there's like this indoctrination right off the get-go. And what they do is they basically have the candidates go through test after test after test. And they're not necessarily testing how fast they can run, how fast they can swim, how many pull-ups they can do, or or any of those factors, or how fast or how strong they can do things. What they're really looking for, because everybody's going to break down at some point in time, is whether or not somebody endures through that and stays through it with like this content joy about them, because they're it's almost impossible. I mean, you've been to combat, I've been to combat. It's almost impossible to actually simulate a combat scenario. But if you can put as much stress on somebody as possible, as possible, like absolutely for days and weeks and months, make them tired, make them hungry, make them hurting, make them in pain, and then see how they react. And if they can react in in a scenario like that with a little bit of like, yeah, but you know what? I'm still breathing, I'm still here, all is well. Come on, guys, let's keep going. That's the guy you want that is going through combat scenarios with you. And so when I think about this idea of contentment in the military, there's these guys that go through these extreme hard things, but then Thanksgiving comes around and they're away from their family, and it just wrecks them. And it's like, hey guys, if you just correlate a little bit of this and like look at how God has been working in your life, he has prepared you for these things, and he has given you his word, and he has given you these examples, and he has told you flat out to be content, be thankful. So start thinking about the things that you do have rather than the things that you don't have. And that'll really help you walk through these scenarios.

SPEAKER_03:

But so you're you're really tying Thanksgiving with endurance. Like as we learn gratitude, that the Lord will use that to give us endurance through these difficult times. That's really good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I like to think of it as sacrifice to you. In Psalm 50 and verse 14, he says, Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and perform your vows to the Most High and call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you and you shall glorify me. Now, I don't want to, I want to be careful not to take that out of context, but our lives are to be a living sacrifice. And if we're laying down our lives, even in the hard circumstances and the discomfort of military life, we can be grateful to the Most High God who's chosen us and set us apart to walk this journey in the military life for a purpose to sanctify us. And we have to be careful not to miss that even in the hard. I know in another episode I talked about counting the wins, like just looking at even in the hard, like it reminds me of walking through fog or driving in fog. Like I just need to see a little bit of a glimpse. Okay, what is good here that I can rejoice in and be thankful for that in the discomfort.

SPEAKER_01:

So I feel like it's revealing of our faith. Like, do we trust God in the heart, you know, enough to say, thank you, God, for this, because I know that you were doing something good. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

One thing I try to remember is that I don't have to be like necessarily like love the hard, right? He's not saying, Yes, enjoy this heart, love it. Like, but I can, like you said, thank God for what he's doing in the heart, that he's allowing me to go through this because it has a purpose. It's not in vain.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I think as well, sometimes just changing the timeline can be helpful. So let's say you're on duty Thanksgiving day and you're missing the gathering that you would want to be a part of during that moment, or you're deployed and you're missing all the things back home, or whatever the case is. Sometimes if we extend the timeline a little bit, it'll allow us to find some things to be grateful for. Like, wow, God, you have brought me through this season. You have grown me in this specific way, you have given me this, that, or the other. So sometimes if you're looking and you're searching and struggling to find things to be grateful for, just extend the timeline. Like, oh, okay, over the past six months or over the past year or over the past five years, what has God been doing in my life? What has been God, what has God been doing through me? Some of those types of things.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think that's good. To the spouse side, like if your husband is deployed and he's gonna miss the holidays, been there, done that, like it can be hard. But I think if you enter into Thanksgiving with a thankful heart, like Brian said, extend the timeline, like and see all the goodness and recognize what's happening, it's gonna propel you into the holiday season in a very different way that can be life-giving instead of a drudge of like, uh, we gotta make it through this time frame. And you will also be a help to your husband. If you're at home wallowing and complaining and grumbling that he's not there, you're not actually serving him and loving him well. He needs to hear you encourage him that it's gonna be okay. Like, you know, Joshua and I spent many holidays apart, but I'm thankful it's helped me appreciate the ones we've gotten to spend together, you know. So I just we don't want to miss you out there. We know it's hard. It's okay. Cry in your pillow. Don't cry in your pillow for four days. Like, get up and thank God for something.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. It it's also infectious. Yeah. I'm thinking of so many groups you mentioned at the beginning, like a whole bunch of military guys sitting around. They're in the field, they're tired, they're wet, they're hungry, they're they're just irritated. What do they do? They start grumbling about everything they don't have, about wanting to be home, about wanting to go take a shower, about whatever the case is, right? And they're just grumbling and grumbling, and there's it feeds off of each other. And all these guys start grumbling, and then they start one-upping each other, and it's like, oh my, I have it worse than you. And it's like, I had to do this, I had firewatch and you had this, and everybody's like grumbling and trying to like one-up each other's grumbling, and everybody it just brings everybody down and everybody's just like irritated. I think the same thing happens with the ladies back home, but correct me if I'm wrong here.

SPEAKER_04:

We will.

SPEAKER_02:

If you are I'm now imagining these ladies sitting around, and if one has a a spirit of just discontentment, of grumbling, she brings other people in because she has to communicate that to somebody. So she starts communicating to somebody to look for comfort, but what that person does is they want to empathize, but they don't want to also go, yeah, but what are you thinking? Like, they don't want to do that, so they end up saying something that they're grumbling about to try to like meet them. And then it just creates this scenario of this perpetual grumbling. And I just want to point out like all it takes is one person to stop that train of grumbling continuing around the group to go, hey guys, but what are we thankful for? What are we content? Are we are we being thankful? What is God teaching us in that?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Um so Joshua, you do this really well. I I am way more affected by the weather than I would like to be. Maybe it's from all the time being in the field in eastern North Carolina and it's cold and rainy. But Joshua, his big thing. It's a beautiful day. Like, and we'll be in an event and it'll be like cold and rainy outside, and I'm just like, and it's affecting my affect way more than I wish it would. But and Joshua's like, hey, it's a beautiful day, and it really is infected. Like, it's infectious that it lifts.

SPEAKER_01:

I know I think you've even said that before. Yeah, just quoting Josh.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, there's sometimes when it is a sunny and 70 day, yeah, and I say it's a beautiful day, and like, hey, this time you can agree with me.

SPEAKER_04:

Right. This is great.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, like today it's sunny, that's great.

SPEAKER_00:

I just want to say it's okay to tell people if you're struggling, like that's not grumbling and complaining. We need to distinguish that. Like grumbling and complaining is a heart issue. It's really discontentment, it's not strong enough to endure, it's a way that you're living where you can't see the good in anything that's happening to you. And so to tell another girlfriend, hey, this is hard. I need you to speak some truth to me. Like I not, hey, this is hard. I want you to encourage me to continue to wallow in the hard is different.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I think part of that is getting to the but God moment. And so as a Christian, like we can talk about how things are difficult, we can acknowledge the pain and the difficulty. We've talked about this a lot on this podcast, is just acknowledging the hurt, acknowledging the difficulty, acknowledging the loneliness, whatever it is. But we've got to get to that point of but God is doing this in my life, but God has provided this in my life. And so we've got to get to that but God moment. I get concerned when I'm with a Christian and they can't get to the but God moment. Oh, yeah. Even if we're meeting for 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour, five weeks, six weeks, six months, I'm like, man, where there's a lot of people. How do you get them there? That's my question. But God.

SPEAKER_01:

Like, how do you love another brother or sister when you know, say it was me and you wanted me to focus on what I'm thankful for and point me back to what God's doing in a good way?

SPEAKER_02:

Flat out, just asking. So, what are the things that God is teaching you through that? All these bad things that you just keep like mentioning. So, what's God teaching you through that? Okay. If he doesn't have an answer, like, okay, so what are the things that you're thankful for in this season? And if he's just like nothing, everything's just horrible. It's like, okay, well, let's go to some script. Let's let's like read about Job for a little bit.

SPEAKER_04:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

Um let's let's talk about uh so even if you are sitting here and you believe absolutely everything is horrible and wrong in the world and around you, if you have Christ, you have everything.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

So even if every circumstance has fallen apart, if you're in Christ, you have eternity to be thankful for.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Yeah, I also you mentioned Job, Joseph, Old Testament Joseph, not New Testament Joseph, like sold into slavery by his brothers, thrown into prison, unjustly condemned, all sorts of evil things happen to him. And at the very end of his story, he's able to look at his brothers and say, You meant it for evil. That like he doesn't say, Hey, you know, it's okay, you didn't really mean it. He doesn't gloss like you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good and brought it about to save a whole bunch of people. And so I'm paraphrasing, but like the just seeing some of those stories in scripture, asking questions, what is God doing? What is God showing you? Just trying to get our gaze up to what might God be doing in this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Because there's there's definitely gonna be seasons where you go through that struggle. You don't want to sit there though. Yeah. But you have to break out of it a little bit and look back on your past struggles and go, okay, what what was God doing with me through those other ones that has prepared me up to this point? What were some things that he taught me in those times that maybe I'm not seeing here? Yeah. And then try to open your eyes a little bit to what's going on around you in those in those times.

SPEAKER_01:

One of my verses concerning that, just thinking about what God has done is from Lamentations 3, verse 21. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. Like when we're just thinking about what God has done in the heart or his faithfulness throughout our lives. Like we have hope. I've thought about that so many times. That's right.

SPEAKER_03:

And I, Psalm 23.

SPEAKER_00:

I was just gonna go there. Where do you really go there? No, no, you go there first.

SPEAKER_03:

I've been in that just so much after teaching. Yeah, that's right. So Psalm 23, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Why? Because you are with me. God is with us in the valley of the shadow of death. Similar idea comes next. You prepare a table before me. Where does the Lord prepare a table before us? In the presence of our enemies, God is with us in the difficult season.

SPEAKER_02:

And if you're not a huge Old Testament poetic guy, you can go all the way to the Great Commission in Matthew 28, where he says, And though I am with you always after saying, Hey, go and spread the good news.

SPEAKER_00:

I love so as I was I've just been in Psalm 23 for a long time after preparing to teach at a women's event. But one thing that was really cool as I dug in and studied this, Brian just mentioned, even though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, and you're with me, but right after that, he says, it's it's not a period, you are with me. I think it's a semicolon. I can't see it on my glasses, but uh your rod and your staff, they comfort me. And digging into the like the Lord is our shepherd. We are sheep, we easily go astray. And I did some digging into like what the rod and the staff are that a shepherd holds. And it's beautiful. The rod is for disciplining and protection from you know, the evil enemy, and the staff is to gently guide. So when he's with us, sometimes he's disciplining us, and we think of that as like harsh punishment, but it's not. It's he's he's testing us, laying something out before us to draw us to himself and to help us to see more clearly and then using his staff to gently lead us. Like even in the beginning of Psalm 23, it says, He makes me lie down in green pastures. When we're in the green pastures, he put us there. So we've talked a lot about giving thanks and hard, but also it's really easy to neglect giving thanks when we're laying in the green pastures by the still waters. And to the Jews, the imagery of still water is so significant. They don't love water like we do here in America. Like we love living by the beach. Waters were tumultuous, storm-filled. Think of them outfishing on the Sea of Galilee. Like they weren't just vacationing down at the beach like we do here in the southeast. So the still water is a is a very comforting picture to these Old Testament people. But are we rejoicing when we're laying near that still water when we're in the green pastures, or are we just like, yeah, I did it myself instead of like or I just want to forget about all the bad and just not even thank God or think about? Like, are we pointing everything back to the good shepherd? I love how it ends. Surely good neatness and mercy shall follow me, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Like, like Joshua said, can we just stop and rejoice and give thanks and be content with the fact that we're going to dwell with God Almighty forever? Like these things are gonna pass away. Anyway, I'm on a rabbit trail. That's just amazing. Love you.

SPEAKER_03:

Can I circle back to what Kelly was asking? What do you what do you how do you counsel somebody who's just in a stubborn darkness and they can't get to the butt god moment? Was that your question?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So this is really if if you can't, I mean, after convert like step one is talk to somebody, a trusted godly mentor, a trusted godly friend, talk through it, talk it out, go to the scriptures. We're giving you some pretty basic stuff here. The next step is really to invite in a biblical counselor to help you through. Like if you've got some deep depression that is not letting go, a a biblical counselor can hopefully, in a more like nuanced way and maybe a more precise way help you get through some of that. I think it's also an invitation to consider, am I really saved? It's an invitation to consider that because the Christian can can get there. It may take some extra people helping, it may take some more intentional biblical counseling.

SPEAKER_01:

But if you can't and it because it's a it's kind of like a do I trust the character of God?

SPEAKER_03:

Right. Do I trust the character of God? Because at some point, the fact that it won't let go is is not a is not the ability to get to that trusting God's goodness, trusting that God is good, that God is good for you, and He is doing something in this. And so we've just gotta we've gotta accept those invitations into a deeper pressing in, whether that's bringing more people in to the conversation, or whether it's even wrestling through do I trust God? Do I believe God? Do I believe that God is good? I know we are trying to, you know, have a nice, thankful Thanksgiving week podcast, but I also know depression and the holidays go together. Yes. They they're just two rails of the same train track, right? And in the military community. And in the military community, it's on it's steroids. Steroids. Literally. Don't do steroids. Yes. No.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And I'm thinking about the young Marine in the barracks. All a bunch of his friends who are in the barracks with him have gone maybe back to wherever mom and dad's house is for the holidays, and there's only a couple guys in the barracks just sitting around. And it is a dark, lonely place. And so if that's what's happening with them, absolutely speaking to somebody and then questioning and asking yourself that real question of do I believe in who God is and what he's done for me? And I think that's true, not just around the holidays, but I mean, even the word Thanksgiving, we're we're commanded to do it all the time in all circumstances. This is just one time of the year that we highlight it and we the whole country is going, hey, Thanksgiving. It's not about turkeys and pilgrims and stuff. We're it's actually named Thanksgiving. We're supposed to be thankful and be praising and worshiping God for what He's done for us. So it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_03:

There's another great evangelistic opportunity, is we've been kind of assuming it throughout and definitely been using lots of passages and saying it a thousand different ways, but just to be explicit, Thanksgiving is about thanking God. Living a thankful life is about thanking God. And so if you have a non-Christian friend who's who's trying to be just generically thankful, that's kind of what you know. We have shirts now that say thankful. Yeah and not not dudes usually, but you know, you've got like coffee mugs. I'm thank hashtag thankful, whatever. Well, thankful to who, thankful for what? Like try to like narrow in on some of the specifics. What are you thankful for and who are you thankful to? It can be really good just kind of bridge conversations into gospel conversations.

SPEAKER_00:

And that line is something I like to do when I'm journaling my thankfulness in the morning. I write out in what I'm thankful for. I bless you, Lord, for. I bless you, Lord, for. So it's like, Lord, this is from you. I bless you, Lord, for this hard season. I know you are good and you have a purpose. I bless you, Lord, for that my health. It's good. You know, like if you think about like Brian saying who you're actually thanking, it's helpful. Well, I know we have to wrap up this episode. We hope you guys have an amazing Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving. We are so excited that you continue to listen. If you're finding what you're hearing on this podcast helpful, we ask that you share it with some friends. We'd love to hear what you want to hear us talk about. Send us a message through our Instagram page or through our website at militarywellnesscollective.com. And we look forward to being with you guys next week. See y'all soon.