The Things We Forget to Be Grateful For
We grow so accustomed to the things that sustain us that, sometimes, we forget to be grateful for them.
We complain about the rain.
It interrupts our plans, leaves our clothes damp, soils our shoes, and turns an ordinary journey into an inconvenience. We hurry beneath our umbrellas, waiting for the clouds to pass, wishing the sky would simply clear.
And when the rain finally stops, we hardly give it another thought.
We complain about the sun, too.
We grumble about the heat, the sweat gathering on our skin, the uncomfortable warmth of an afternoon that seems to stretch on forever. We seek the shade, turn on our fans, and wish the weather would be kinder to us.
How strange it is that the very things we complain about can become the things we desperately pray for.
Lately, I have been thinking about the forest and land fires in Kalimantan.
In peatland, a fire can persist beneath the surface of the earth, where the eye cannot easily see it. The flames above may disappear, and yet the danger remains below, smoldering through the dry layers of soil. Pouring water over the surface is not always enough. The ground itself must be cooled, and the hidden embers must be extinguished, lest the fire return.
Air pollution readings in parts of Kalimantan have reached extraordinarily dangerous levels, with reports recording indices above 1,000.
This is the reality for the people battling these forest fires. Life does not wait for the smoke to clear.
People still have to earn a living. They still have to put food on the table, pay their bills, and provide for their families. A street vendor cannot always afford to close their stall simply because the air is dangerous. A parent cannot set aside every responsibility until the fires are gone. There are people who wake up already knowing that the air outside may make them sick, yet still have to step out into it because their lives depend on doing so.
I cannot pretend to know precisely what those firefighters feel, or what it is like to stand where they stand. But I can imagine the longing for something as ordinary as rain becoming almost unbearable.
Perhaps, after so many days of effort, they begin to look at the sky differently.
Perhaps every gathering cloud brings a little hope. Perhaps the first distant rumble of thunder makes them pause and look upward. Perhaps they find themselves waiting for the heavens to open, wishing for rain.
I wonder whether I would cry, too, if I had spent so long fighting a fire that would not die, only to feel the first drop of rain against my skin.
Perhaps I would.
Not because one drop could extinguish an entire forest fire, but because it would mean that, for once, something beyond my own exhausted efforts had come to help.
Something I could not summon by strength alone.
Something I could only receive.
And I find that thought heartbreaking.
How many things in life do we fail to appreciate simply because we have never had to live without them? How many blessings become invisible through the sheer familiarity of their presence?
We complain about the rain because it makes us wet. Somewhere, someone is waiting for it because the earth beneath their feet will not stop burning.
We complain about the heat because it makes us uncomfortable. Somewhere, someone is enduring that same heat while working to protect a forest, a home, or a community from destruction.
Perhaps gratitude begins in moments like these.
The rain is still capable of ruining an afternoon. The heat can still exhaust us. We need not pretend otherwise.
But perhaps we can pause, for a moment, before wishing away the weather, and remember that the world does not exist solely within the boundaries of our own comfort.
There are people whose needs are different from ours, whose circumstances give ordinary things extraordinary meanings.
And remembering them does not require us to feel guilty for our own comfort. It asks only that we become more attentive to the world beyond it.
I think, too, about the beauty of God's creation.
How easily we become accustomed to it.
The rain falls, the rivers flow, the trees grow, and the sun rises again the next morning.
We wake beneath the same sky so many times that we begin to regard its constancy as something guaranteed, rather than something wondrous.
We forget that there is grace in the ordinary.
Sunlight touching the earth. The wind moving through the leaves. The clouds gathering on the horizon, carrying the possibility of rain.
We do not have to understand every mystery of creation to recognize that there is something worthy of wonder in it.
And perhaps there is something we must learn about gratitude: that it is not merely the feeling we experience when we receive something extraordinary, but the willingness to recognize the extraordinary in what we have received all along.
I do not want to become so accustomed to the rain that I forget what it means for the earth to be thirsty.
I do not want to become so accustomed to the sunlight that I forget how much of life depends upon its warmth.
And I do not want to become so absorbed in the small discomforts of my own days that I forget the people who are enduring far greater hardships than I can see.
Perhaps we will never fully understand the value of every blessing while it remains within our reach.
But every now and then, life gives us a reason to look again.
To see the rain not only as inconvenience and ruined plans, but as water returning to quench the earth.
To see the sun not only as heat upon our skin, but as light falling upon a world that would otherwise be dark.
To see the everyday not as a promise kept, but as a blessing given.
And perhaps, the next time rain interrupts my day, I will look up at the sky a little longer.
I will remember those who are waiting for it.
And I will be grateful that it came at all.