(A Survival Guide for the Genuinely Struggling but Still Showing Up)
Every first day of spring, someone somewhere is posting a sunrise photo with the caption, “New season, new beginnings, so grateful!!” And somewhere else, someone is reading that post while their kid just crashed their Jeep.
This article is for the second person.
Welcome to March 19th.
First day of spring. The day the earth officially decides to try again. Beautiful concept. Genuinely lovely. And also—some of you reading this right now are in what can only be described as an alligator roll.
For the uninitiated, an alligator roll is when an alligator grabs you and spins you violently underwater until you don’t know which way is up. It is their signature move. Life learned it from them, apparently. You know the roll.
It’s not one thing. It’s never one thing.
It’s the friendship that quietly broke your heart.
AND the finances that are not doing what you need them to do.
AND the Jeep. (The Jeep.)
AND the prayers that you have been praying—faithfully, consistently, with everything you have—that have not yet produced the breakthrough you need.
And now someone wants you to be grateful. On the first day of spring. Sure.
First—Let’s Validate the Roll
Before we talk about gratitude, can we just acknowledge something? The roll is real.
There is a version of the gratitude conversation that skips straight to, “But think about how blessed you are!!” And while that is technically true, it is also the conversational equivalent of telling someone who just got dunked by an alligator, “At least you’re getting a bath!!”
Not helpful. Not yet.
The roll deserves to be named. The disappointment is real. The financial pressure is real. The specific exhaustion of watching your kid walk away from a crumpled Jeep—feeling simultaneously furious and overwhelmingly relieved—is a very specific emotional cocktail that nobody warns you about in parenting books.
And the prayers. The long ones. The sustained ones. The “God, I have been faithful, and I need You to move here” ones. The waiting on those is its own particular kind of hard that deserves to be honored—not rushed past with a Bible verse and a smile.
You are allowed to be in the roll. You are allowed to name it. You are allowed to say, “This is hard, and I am tired.” That’s not ingratitude. That’s honesty. And God—and the people who love you—can handle your honesty.
Okay. Now Let’s Talk About Gratitude Anyway.
Here’s the thing about gratitude that the sunrise-photo crowd doesn’t tell you: real gratitude was never designed for the easy days.
Gratitude on a good day is just noticing. Gratitude on a hard day is something else entirely. It’s more like a decision. A small, stubborn, almost defiant decision to find the one thing—just ONE thing—that is still good. Still standing. Still true. Even while the alligator is doing its thing.
And here’s what’s fascinating: psychologists, neuroscientists, theologians, and people who have survived genuinely terrible seasons all agree on this—the smallest genuine gratitude beats the biggest performed gratitude every time.
You don’t need a list of fifty blessings. You don’t need to feel it deeply and warmly in your soul. You just need one real thing. Said honestly. Even if it sounds small.
Even if it sounds like, “I am grateful my kid walked away from that Jeep.” Full stop.
Not, “I am grateful for this beautiful lesson and the growth opportunity and God’s protection and the reminder that material things don’t matter—”
No. Just, “He walked away.” That’s enough for today.
The Gratitude Nobody Talks About
Here’s the version of gratitude that doesn’t make the inspirational posters: grudging gratitude.
The kind that sounds like, “I don’t love this situation. I don’t understand the timing. I am genuinely frustrated with how long this is taking. AND—I can see that I am still here. Still standing. Still in the game.”
That’s not weak gratitude. That might actually be the strongest kind. Because it costs something.
It’s not gratitude when everything is easy and obvious. It’s gratitude when everything in you wants to just be mad for a minute—and you choose it anyway. Not because you feel it. Because you know it’s true even when you don’t feel it.
A Completely Honest Gratitude List for People in the Roll
In the spirit of keeping it real, here’s what genuine first-day-of-spring gratitude actually looks like sometimes:
- Grateful the kid walked away from the Jeep. (The Jeep did not walk away. But the kid did. That’s the one that matters.)
- Grateful the friendship disappointment happened now—before you invested even more of yourself into something that wasn’t what you thought it was.
- Grateful the financial pressure hasn’t broken you yet. Bent you? Absolutely. Kept you up at night? Yes. Broken you? Not yet. Not today.
- Grateful the prayers haven’t been answered on your timeline—because if you’re honest, some of the things you prayed for three years ago getting a “not yet” was actually the best thing that ever happened to you. (You know it’s true. You hate that it’s true. But you know it.)
- Grateful it’s spring. Which means the winter—however long it was—is officially over. Even if your circumstances haven’t caught up to the calendar yet.
About That Timing Though
Let’s address the elephant—or the alligator—in the room.
The prayers that need to get moving. The breakthrough that is taking longer than you planned. The gap between where you are and where you know you’re supposed to be—that gap that you have been faithfully, patiently, sometimes not-so-patiently standing in.
Here’s the most honest thing that can be said about timing: you are not behind. You are not forgotten. You are not the exception to how this works.
You are in the part of the story that every single person who ever built something real had to go through—the part that doesn’t look like anything from the outside. The part where the work is happening underground—like every single thing that is about to bloom on this first day of spring was doing its most important work in the dark.
The tree doesn’t panic in February. It just keeps doing what it does. Quietly. Underground. Trusting the process it was designed for. You were designed for this too.
The spring is coming. For the earth today. For you—on a day that is closer than it feels right now.
How to Actually Do Gratitude Today
Practical. Real. No cold plunging required.
Step 1: Name the roll out loud. Say it. Write it. Tell God about it like He doesn’t already know. He can handle it. He’s heard worse. He’s heard yours before, and He’s still here.
Step 2: Find the one true thing. Not fifty things. Not a whole journal page. One thing that is genuinely, actually true and good. Start there.
Step 3: Say thank you for that one thing. Out loud if you can. In the car. In the shower. In the parking lot at the gas station. Wherever you are.
Step 4: Let that be enough for today. You don’t have to feel transformed. You don’t have to feel the warm glow of deep spiritual peace. You just have to have said it. That counts.
Step 5: Show up tomorrow and do it again. That’s it. That’s the whole practice. Showing up again.
Today’s Scripture
“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:18
Not for all circumstances. In all circumstances. Even the alligator roll ones. Especially those.
A Note From the Editor
I wrote this article from inside the roll. Which is either a conflict of interest or a qualification. I’m going with qualification.
Happy first day of spring.
To everyone blooming. And to everyone still underground doing the invisible work—your spring is coming.