My mom was a living example of gratitude. One day, she was healthy, and beautiful inside and out. The next, she seemingly lost it all. She lost her health when she delivered me; the multiple sclerosis made her paralyzed from the waist down. She also lost her husband two years later. And she lost her only child, who she only got to see 3-4 times per year, for 3-4 hours each time when I was brought to her apartment to visit. 

Adversity didn’t creep in; it broke in, and it seemingly robbed my mom blind.  

Yet, to the day that she died when I was 23, she never once complained; she always smiled, she always was positive, and she always seemed to stay faithful.

Like Joseph from the Old Testament. Even though Joseph’s life improved, while, unfortunately, my mom’s did not. 

In fact, I was on the phone with her right before she passed away, and we discussed me coming to visit her. To this day, my one regret was not visiting her, as I felt like I had all of the time in the world. Now, I won’t know until heaven if she knew how sick she was, and, she just didn’t want me to worry, but she was consistently positive my entire life, so, it would not surprise me if she kept it to herself. I never saw or heard her cry or even frown.

My mom seemed to focus on what she did have, rather than what she didn’t. She had perception that as bad as it was, it could be worse. She lost her ability to walk, but she was still alive. When my father left with me when I was two, she not only lost her husband, but, her only child, however, she was still my mom! With this perspective, whenever we would talk on the phone, or, I would get to visit her, she was clearly grateful for that time with me. Precious time that was a gift to us both. No one could take that time or memories away.

Being a parent now myself, my mom was clearly grateful for every minute with me; every moment, and I felt it. Even if it was few and far between. Her smile: one of the only consistencies in my life growing up, was proof of her gratitude for being a mother.

While my mother’s adversity was not the exact same as Joseph’s, they both stayed positive, and they focused on God when it seemed like they were being torn from their family, and losing it all.

Joseph’s brothers abandoned him and sold him into slavery. They then left him to die. Then, when he wouldn’t sleep with his master’s wife, she cried “rape,” and he was sentenced to many years in jail; for a crime that he didn’t commit. Similar to my mom who was punished for being a God-fearing, caring and loving wife and mom-to-be. 

Now, while Joseph could have been discouraged, and, perhaps he was, he wasn’t vengeful, as his perspective was that even in the prison, he knew his purpose was to lead. He still had much to live for, he needed to prepare to lead. Plus, while he lost much, he didn’t lose the love of his father, or his Heavenly Father.  

He didn’t need the coat, or the affection of his brothers. He didn’t need to be free from slavery, or from a jail cell. He knew how much worse it could be, and so, he was grateful for what he did had, and what he had to look forward to. God’s plan for his life was to lead his brothers and save their village. Just like my mom, who made me the man whom I am today.

Here’s the connection to my principle that “adversity can create gratitude”: regardless of the ups and downs in Joseph’s life, in Genesis 39:2, we find that “Yahweh’s presence was with Joseph and he became successful while living in the house of his Egyptian master” (TPT).  In verse 23, we see a slightly different version: “Yahweh’s presence was with Joseph and caused everything Joseph did to prosper” (TPT).

Now, I realize this doesn’t say anything about Joseph’s level of gratitude, but we have to take the entire context of Scripture to heart here. Throughout the Bible, do we ever see God bless and show favor to anyone who has a bad attitude? An ungrateful spirit? An entitled posture? No. In fact, those choices often caused people to miss God completely—like Jonah, Job’s friends, Saul, Judas, Ananias, and Sapphira, for example. So, we have to know that the entire time Joseph was enslaved or incarcerated, he served and loved the people around him, all the while believing God would take care of him.

Joseph never had a choice in what was happening to him, but he always had a choice in how he responded to it all. Just like me, just like you. When he could have gotten bitter and decided to live as a victim of his brothers’ evil, instead, he maintained his character and integrity. Think about how different Joseph’s life might have been had he chosen to hate his family and everyone who harmed him, including Pharoah. In his high position, he even had full authority to take revenge on his family, but he chose instead to forgive them, bless them, and take care of them. Ironically, that set off the chain of events that fulfilled the very dreams he had shared with his family years before, back at home, that fueled the hatred of his brothers.

In Joseph’s story, we see that God’s definition of success has little to do with wealth or position and everything to do with character and faith. Whether in the prison or the palace, no matter where God placed Joseph, he was always the same man of faith.

So, as both a maturity test and a reality check for us all, we must ask ourselves the following:

• Do I celebrate when everything is going great but complain with every crisis or downturn?
• Does my attitude operate on a sliding scale, fully dependent on my circumstances in the moment?
• Is my life lived in moods, where people are never quite sure who I’m going to be?
• Am I good with God when he blesses, but do I doubt him when he seems to be silent?
• Do I view my current status in life as his blessing or curse, reward or punishment?

The apostle Paul constantly expressed gratitude for what Christ had saved him from and saved him to. I am continually challenged by his attitude toward life.

My heart spills over with thanks to God for the way he continually empowers me, and to our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, who found me trustworthy and who authorized me to be his partner in this ministry.

Mercy kissed me, even though I used to be a blasphemer, a persecutor of believers, and a scorner of what turned out to be true. I was ignorant and didn’t know what I was doing. I was flooded with such incredible grace, like a river overflowing its banks, until I was full of faith and love for Jesus, the Anointed One!

I can testify that the Word is true and deserves to be received by all, for Jesus Christ came into the world to bring sinners back to life—even me, the worst sinner of all! Yet I was captured by grace, so that Jesus Christ could display through me the outpouring of his Spirit as a pattern to be seen for all those who would believe in him for eternal life.

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