I love the title of this series, Begin Within, because that’s where I finally found the gratitude I’d somehow lost in the busyness of life. Honestly, I had to dig deep. In a season of overwhelming grief, gratitude wasn’t blooming in this little heart of mine. After a few years of decline, we were hurled into a year and a half of more intense caregiving for my mom.

At this point, I found myself trudging through waist-high weeds of resentment, weariness, and feelings of being underappreciated. My mom’s dementia (likely Alzheimer’s) had stolen her sweet disposition. She regularly threw my things on the front porch, told me she hated me, and yelled at me to “get out!” I tried telling myself this was not really my mom. But it still stung and sent me home in tears on many occasions.

I wasn’t grateful for losing my mom, the long days, or the lack of love I felt from her or for her. I didn’t want to be there. When asked what my plans were for the day, I found myself saying, “I have to go to my mom’s today.” I hated how that sounded. I didn’t want it to be this way.

Good Things Can Grow in the Dark

There are times when gratitude will be the hardest thing to harvest in the garden of our hearts. Yet as we dig deep, uprooting what’s been growing wild, without our attention—somehow, this tending of our garden within becomes our way back. Beyond the stench of our bad attitudes, anger, and unwillingness to see anything good in our situations, God is still at work. Because long ago, a seed was planted, for such a time as this, to bloom in the dark while we weren’t watching.

As the holiday season approaches, I’m reminded of the gift I give my sister-in-law each year, an amaryllis bulb. Recently, she shared her secret for their beautiful blooms—she places them in the dark for a few months. Nothing gives her more joy than when the beautiful blooms break out in December. Much like these bulbs, that grow best when placed in a cool, dark place for a season, we too are being prepared to bloom while we’re in what feels like our darkest days. At just the right moment, often with a guttural cry, our own breakthrough begins.

Something happens and we start unearthing what God planted in our heart of hearts. This point of pain reveals a beautiful bloom, an exquisite flower grown only in the soil of grief. A rare kind of gratitude known only when we find what we thought was lost forever emerges from bitterness broken up, an ungrateful heart giving way to the goodness of God.

This is what I found in the few short weeks at the end of my mother’s life. After wrestling with an ungrateful heart, feeling like Alzheimer’s (and on some occasions, God) had stolen my sweet mama’s mind, personality, and her last good years, we were given the gift of a new diagnosis. About six weeks before she passed, we discovered she was having absent seizures, and the doctors prescribed a new medication. Miraculously, her sweet disposition returned. We had the chance to reconnect and spend time with her reading the Bible, singing hymns at her requests; we even laughed a little.

The last thing my mom ever said to me are the sweetest words I’ve ever heard. She looked me straight in the eyes, punctuating every single syllable, saying, “I have always loved you, Amy.”

I will be forever grateful for those words.

Caregiving is often a thankless job. And even if I never heard those exact words, I am grateful I was able to be one of her caregivers. Along with my dad and sister, we were able to keep her at home all but the last seven days of her life. It was a gift I couldn’t see at the time.

Most of what I learned was in hindsight. I wish I had been more grateful while I was walking through my story, but one thing I know is grace is a glorious ground-covering. It grows under our feet and covers our tracks. In the same way that grace grows under us, grace grows in us, blossoming forth as a grateful heart for what God has done and will do. When we fall short or get stuck in the weeds, it’s grace that comes to our rescue.

Growing Intentional Gratitude

Now, I’m more intentional about cultivating a heart of gratitude. One thing I started to do in the middle of my difficult, dark days was to change one phrase in my vocabulary: I traded “have to” for “get to.” I started saying, “I get to go to my mom’s house today.” And that changed everything.

Friend, try changing your HAVE TOs to GET TOs and see how gratitude grows in your heart today.

Meet Amy Elaine Martinez

Where to find her . . .

• Website
• The Grace Frontier Podcast
• Becoming a Victory Girl: Staking Your Claim in The Kingdom (book)
• Instagram
• Facebook

Begin Within is a series to inspire a year-round lifestyle of gratitude that will impact not only your own life, but the lives of your neighbors as well. Gratitude is a theme we talk about often around here because it ties so closely into other missional living rhythms. Practicing gratitude reminds to keep our hearts soft and expectant and our eyes open. Therefore, the more we embrace gratitude, the easier it becomes to truly see our neighbors and where we can join what God is already doing in our neighborhoods.

If you would like to contribute to Begin Within, you can find the submission guidelines here.

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If you would like to cultivate rhythms in addition to gratitude that will empower you live on mission in your neighborhood, check out Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. This small book will help you make a big impact in your neighborhood as you learn to let missional living flow from the inside out. Get the 30-day missional living challenge free when you purchase the book.