This is The Hard Thing That Changed Everything
More than a decade ago, a crisis involving the health of a family member led me to keep a daily gratitude journal. The goal was to name the good during an agonizing situation and thus build my “gratitude muscle.”
The Gift of the Hard Thing
At first, it was a challenge. Sometimes my journal read: “The sun came up.” Or “I got out of bed today.” Over time, small glimmers of light and hope filtered back into our lives and were reflected in the journal.
I am blessed with a spectacular relationship with God—I’m just crazy about Him and He feels the same about me. He has never failed me, and His presence was the true source of the light and hope that found its way back into our lives.
But true confession: when life looked more “normal,” I abandoned the daily gratitude practice. I am not saying that life stayed easy, it never does. More hardship arrived in the form of a second breast cancer diagnosis for me, the slow erosion of my beloved mother to dementia, and the death of our youngest grandson.
Then, one warm April day, I sat in a doctor’s office and received a diagnosis of severe heart failure with a clot in my heart that could kill me at any moment. The news sent me reeling.
My lifetime mantra in challenging situations is “Well, this is not a surprise to God. What does He want to teach me in this?” I said it out loud the entire drive home.
The next morning, during my prayer time, the Lord asked, “Do you trust me?” And then He said, “This is about your heart.” “What?” I thought. And He said, “Not your broken heart. It’s about your heart for ME.”
I was stunned, and somewhat crushed, because I would have told you that my whole heart belonged to Him, that my entire focus was His.
What to Do With the Time I Have Left?
I began an elaborate regimen of drugs designed to treat heart failure. After the diagnosis, I started thinking about something I have never had: a Bucket List. What did I want to do with the time I had left? Travel to exotic places, spend time with family, return to Venice where I lived 40+ years ago?
The problem was, aside from spending time with family, nothing I thought of excited me.
Then I realized that the thing that thrills me the most, that I am most driven to do, is to continue studying God’s Word, learning about Him, and teaching others. That thrills my broken heart. It also reflected the statement God had given me to sit with: this was indeed about my heart for Him.
My Bucket List is to live out the gift and the calling He has given me with all the time I have left in this life. The diagnosis has made me laser-focused on the work God has for me: writing, teaching hundreds of people daily in a chronological Bible reading group, teaching in person whenever possible, and working to get the Bible studies I write published and out in the world to help others know Him.
I am overwhelmed with gratitude every day for this hard thing that drives me to hold my future with an open hand and draws me deeper into my life and calling with God. This diagnosis has given me something that I did not have before: the courage to number my days while I fill each one with as much of God as it can hold.
If you are in a difficult place today, I will not pretend it is easy to be grateful for it. But I will tell you this: the hard thing may be the very thing God is using to bring you fully alive.
Meet Briane Pittman Kearns
Briane Pittman Kearns takes the boring out of Bible study and brings the text to life. A seminary-trained Bible teacher and author, Briane reminds her students that God’s Word was written for us, but not to us, and that understanding its ancient world changes everything about how we read it today.
She holds a Master of Arts in Biblical Studies from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and brings more than twenty-five years of experience teaching women to study Scripture with passion, curiosity and joy. She is the founder and teacher of The Testament Talks, a digital chronological Bible reading community where she guides hundreds of students daily through God’s Story. Her writing has appeared through Esther Press/David C Cook, Hello Mornings, and Living By Design, and her forthcoming Genesis creation study will release through Every Woman a Theologian, Phylicia Masonheimer’s publishing imprint. An engaging in-person teacher, Briane welcomes invitations to speak at women’s events, retreats, and church gatherings.
Briane writes from a life shaped by both deep study and deep water. A two-time breast cancer survivor and heart failure patient, she has learned firsthand that the hard things are often the holy things, and that gratitude is not a feeling but a discipline that changes everything it touches.
Briane loves being a southerner, helping women go deep in their Bible study and laughing with friends. She lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, where she is at work on her next Bible study and a manuscript on women in Scripture.
Where to find her . . .
- Website
- Get the Resource Guide for Biblical Culture and Context
- The Testament Talks
- Substack
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.
