Lynne Baab

Friendship, loneliness, and prayer: When thanks aren’t enough

Lynne Baab • Thursday January 18 2024

“Thanks for a delicious meal.” “Thanks for doing that favor for me.” “I’m grateful for your help with the project at church.”

“Thanks for changing my life.”

We use “thanks” or “I’m grateful” in response to specific actions and also to convey gratitude for huge, life-transforming support and encouragement. These things don’t seem equivalent. Knowing how to convey our gratitude for big, significant gifts is challenging. We don’t have a word that conveys really, really big thanks.

We sometimes say, “I could never thank you enough.” I feel that way when I think of certain friends who have given me far, far more than I gave them. A couple of months ago, I wrote about how frustrating I find it when people thank me over and over. It makes me feel like they actually aren’t grateful for my help. Instead, it seems they are embarrassed to need help. With respect to the friends whose care has been life-transforming, I want to thank them over and over.

Am I embarrassed to admit that I have needed friends in ways that transformed my life?

I’ve mentioned before that my family moved 12 times in my first 15 years. By an amazing miracle, a close friend I met in second grade moved to some of the same places, or near enough to visit on school vacations. She was and is a warm, caring person who gives compliments easily, a stark contrast to my exacting mother. Without my friend’s affection, warmth, care, and loyalty during my childhood and teen years, I don’t know if I could be happily married or sustain friendships today. I don’t think I would know how to love. I don’t think I would have very much self-confidence. Her friendship is one of the miracles of my life.

I have thanked her, but I could never thank her enough. I don’t want to sound like that person who frustrated me by thanking me so many times. What can I do? And especially, how can I pray about this?

1. I can ask God to help me accept that the big gifts of my life are just that — gifts. Our job is to open our hands to receive them humbly. We can ask for God’s help to rest peacefully in the deep truth that all gifts, big and small, don’t come to us because we deserve them. They are gifts of grace.

Yes, saying “thank you” is a really good thing, and most of us need to nurture our ability to express thanks to humans and to God. On some level, though, I need to stop frantically saying “thank you,” as if my abundant thanks will balance out the significance of the gift. My compulsive thanks can be an effort to tell myself that I am not indebted to anyone or to God.

2. I can thank God for the gift of love because all love originates in God. All gifts are gifts of grace with their source in the deep love of God. I can ask that the Holy Spirit would help me rejoice that God calls me “Beloved.”

3. I can ask God to help me examine my heart. Am I embarrassed that I needed life-changing help from a friend? Am I ashamed to admit that I needed friends in ways that transformed my life? I can ask God to teach me humility and give me a receptive spirit.

4. I can pray to pay it forward. We can’t know which of our actions might be transformative for others, but we can pray to love friends in ways that genuinely make a difference for them.

About a decade ago, the word “receptive” was significant for me. Pondering that word helped me see that my Enneagram One desire to do a good job at everything had made me feel I had to work so hard. Even in the area of thanking people, I had to do it right. A receptive stance involves open hands to receive the gifts God brings to us—big gifts, small gifts, one-time gifts, and gifts spread over a long period like some friendships bring. Our job is to receive with gratitude. We definitely should say “thank you” at appropriate times, but a central challenge is to be humble enough to receive God’s generosity to us, born not of our deserving but from the hugeness of God’s love. Some of that abundant generosity of God comes to us through friends.

Beloved Lord, thank you for the people who have shaped our lives: friends, family members, mentors, pastors, leaders. In many cases, we can’t thank them enough. Help us receive their love, or the memory of the ways they cared for us, as a gift. Help us rejoice that all gifts originate in you and your deep love for us. Help us let go of our need to earn love. We long to be the kind of people who show life-transforming love to others, and we ask that you empower us to do that.

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Next week: Listening with empathy. Illustration by Dave Baab: Dave's painting desk and the view from our airBnB in Dunedin, New Zealand, January 2021. If you’d like to receive an email when I post on this blog, sign up below under “subscribe.”

A fun article that quotes me in answer to the questions, “Where are you finding joy in congregational life, and what types of generosity are lifting your spirits?” Lots of diverse answers to those questions, including mine.

Related posts:

• The Apostle Paul’s thankfulness for people
• Five quotations about thankfulness
• Creation helps us give thanks

Lynne M. Baab, Ph.D., is a teacher and writer. She has written numerous books, Bible study guides, and articles for magazines and journals. Lynne is passionate about prayer and other ways to draw near to God, and her writing conveys encouragement for readers to be their authentic selves before God. She encourages experimentation and lightness in Christians spiritual practices. Read more »

Lynne is pleased to announce the release of her book on grief and gratitude, designed to help people grieving from anything, including the pandemic, while also desiring to notice God's good gifts. Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian Life is available in paperback, audiobook, and for kindle. Lynne's 2018 book is Nurturing Hope: Christian Pastoral Care for the Twenty-First Century, and her best-selling book is Sabbath-Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest (now available as an audiobook as well as paperback and kindle). You can see her many other book titles here, along with her Bible study guides.

Lynne recently spoke about empathy and also about bringing spiritual practices to life.

Lynne was interviewed recently for the podcast "As the Crow Flies". The first episode focuses on why listening matters and the second one on listening skills. 

Here are two talks Lynne gave on listening (recorded in audio form on YouTube): Listening for Mission and Ministry and Why Listening Matters for Mission and Ministry.

"Lynne's writing is beautiful. Her tone has such a note of hope and excitement about growth. It is gentle and affirming."
— a reader

"Dear Dr. Baab, You changed my life. It is only through God’s gift of the sabbath that I feel in my heart and soul that God loves me apart from anything I do."
— a reader of Sabbath Keeping