Why Gratitude Might Be the First Step Toward Healing What’s Broken

Thanksgiving has a way of revealing the hairline fractures in a family. For some, it’s the low-level dread of going home and smiling across a table you once ate at with joy. For others, it’s the shock of empty chairs—grown sons or daughters who have quietly decided this year (or every year) that it’s too costly, too toxic, or simply too uncomfortable to come home at all. A 2024 New Yorker article named this moment with all of its complexity, recognizing shifts in familial, generational, therapeutic, and social trends which all add up to a relatively new but painful estrangement culture that is felt most acutely at holiday time.

But the tension amongst families is nothing new.  Children have been passing the mashed potatoes to their parents (and vice versa) with venom in their eyes for centuries.

After twenty-five years as a pastor, I’ve watched Thanksgiving from enough angles to know the story is never as simple as the labels we love to slap on one another. I’ve seen Christian parents weaponize doctrine like they’re God’s border patrol agents guarding the purity of the kingdom (and often their parental reputation). I’ve seen adult children wield therapy jargon like a shield—sometimes accurately, sometimes recklessly, and sometimes because it’s easier to borrow a diagnosis than actually have a hard conversation.

And somewhere between “You’re going to hell” and “You’re a narcissist,” the family gets carved up like the turkey.

But Thanksgiving was never meant to feel like this. Thanksgiving was meant to be a feast that forms the soul, a moment in the year where gratitude re-aligns our vision and softens our judgments. Where pride lowers its voice, fear unclenches its fists, and we remember—sometimes against our own instincts—that the person across from me is not my enemy. They are someone God entrusted to me to love.

And if we’re going to find our way back to one another, even in small, proximate ways, then gratitude may be the doorway.

So let me name, with clarity and compassion, three great obstacles I see in our families today.

When Parents Confuse Their Calling with God’s Job

There is a particular wound I’ve watched unfold in Christian homes—one that often starts with good intentions but ends with relational devastation. It’s the belief that parents must protect the peace and purity of their faith and their family’s Christian reputation at any cost, even if that cost is their children.

I’ve seen mothers and fathers moralize everything. I’ve heard them tell their adult kids they’re inviting God’s wrath. I’ve watched them warn that supporting LGBTQ friends, affirming feminism, questioning complementarianism, voting the “wrong” way, or even simply asking theological questions means they’re abandoning the faith.

And under all of it is a trembling fear that if they don’t act as judge, jury, and executioner, the whole house of cards might fall.

But judgment belongs to God alone. Only God can weigh a soul. Only God can see motives. Only God can separate rebellion from confusion, doubt from deconstruction, immaturity from apostasy. Yes, speak the truth—but speak it in love, not in fear. Yes, hold fast to Scripture—but hold fast the way Jesus does: gentle, humble, drawing near to sinners, not driving them away. Yes, call your children to faithfulness—but do not confuse your personal reputation with biblical fidelity.

Few things fracture families faster than confusing our authority with God’s and putting ourselves in the Judgement Seat that only He has a right to.  And few things heal faster than repentance from spiritual control and judgmental moral policing.  Yes, we should “train up a child”, but no we should not train up a child in such a way that our love feels conditional upon their ability to make us look righteous.

It’s as if we are saying that we will only love our kids if they become someone other than who they actually are.  We will only love their future, behaving selves. And that is not grace.  That is not the Gospel.  That is not Godly love.

Thanksgiving invites us to take the first step: to thank God for our children as they are, not as we wish they would be, and to entrust the judgment of their souls back into the hands of the only One who knows them fully.

Romans 5:8 (ESV)
“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

James 4:12 (ESV)
“There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy.”

Ephesians 4:15 (ESV)
“Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”

Matthew 7:1-2 (ESV)
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”

1 Samuel 16:7 (ESV)
“But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man

When Adult Children Use Therapy Language to Justify Estrangement

Now let me turn the diamond and look at the other side.

We are living in a therapeutic age. Much of that is good—we can finally name trauma, understand emotional patterns, and unravel generational wounds with clarity our ancestors never had. Therapy has given us language for things Scripture has been pointing to all along: the wounds of the heart run deep, sin breaks families, and healing takes both honesty and mercy.

But somewhere along the way, therapy stopped being a tool and became a worldview—one in which “my happiness” reigns supreme and relationships are disposable when they inconvenience our inner peace.

I too have watched estrangement become a trend. I’ve watched adult children diagnose their parents with narcissism because their parents disagreed with them. I’ve watched people call ordinary conflict “trauma” because the word carries power. I’ve watched boundaries function as brick walls—not to protect wounds, but to avoid discomfort.

Let me be clear: Sometimes estrangement is necessary. Sometimes trauma is real. Sometimes distance saves a life. But not every tension is trauma. Not every disagreement is abuse. Not every difficult parent is narcissistic. Not every boundary is godly.

When “being happy” outranks “being connected,” healing can become self-centered rather than relational. And healing that doesn’t restore communion is not biblical healing much at all.

Thanksgiving invites us to thank God for the legitimate gifts of the therapeutic age—clarity, language, empathy—without letting therapy become the priesthood that declares who is safe, who is toxic, and who is disposable.

Gratitude opens a different door:

*Lord, thank You for revealing my wounds, but don’t let my wounds become my worldview. Teach me to pursue healing that leads to communion, not isolation.*

Colossians 3:13 (ESV)
“Bear with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgive each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

Romans 12:18 (ESV)
“If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”

1 Peter 4:8 (ESV)
“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.”

Proverbs 3:7 (ESV)
“Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.”
(a necessary warning in a culture where self-perception acts like divine revelation)

When Fear of Conflict Replaces the Call to Reconciliation

This may be the deepest dysfunction of all.

In our culture, conflict feels like failure. Silence feels like peace. Distance feels like safety. Calling someone “toxic” feels cleaner than calling them on the phone. We avoid the hard conversation because it’s awkward. We avoid repentance because it stings our pride. We avoid forgiveness because it feels like we’re losing. We avoid dinner tables because someone there might not agree with our politics, theology, pronouns, or parenting.

But the God of Scripture is a God of reconciliation. That doesn’t mean pretending nothing happened. And it doesn’t mean forcing Eden perfectly back together again. Reconciliation in a fallen world means seeking what is realistically possible—not necessarily what is ideal.

Some parents are truly unsafe.

Some children are truly wounded.

Some families really cannot return to what they were.

But in every relationship—however broken—there is usually some proximate good that can be pursued.

A text instead of a visit.

A boundary that still allows for blessing.

A lowered expectation that makes love possible again.

A tiny gesture of peace instead of a dramatic reunion.

Thanksgiving invites us to thank God not for perfection but for possibility.

2 Corinthians 5:18 (ESV)
“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”

Matthew 5:9 (ESV)
“Blessed are the peacemakers.”

Matthew 18:15 (ESV)
“If your brother sins, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.”

Colossians 3:13 (ESV)
“As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

Ephesians 4:32 (ESV)
“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

A Thanksgiving Invitation

Thanksgiving stands in the doorway of the year like a gentle usher asking us to set down our weapons—both doctrinal and therapeutic—and to remember the mercy that brought us into God’s family in the first place.

Gratitude doesn’t solve everything. It doesn’t erase trauma. It doesn’t fix narcissism. It doesn’t rewrite history. It doesn’t magically pull chairs back up to the table.

But gratitude does something holy. It softens our posture. It tames our pride. It clears our vision. It lets us see a person instead of a category. It lets us hope for a step, not a miracle. It lets us entrust judgment back to God and entrust the process back to grace.

On Thanksgiving, we practice the ancient Christian discipline of giving thanks before the healing comes. Not because everything is fine, but because God is near. Not because reconciliation is easy, but because it is possible.

Not because the family is whole, but because Christ is.

And maybe, just maybe, gratitude is how fractured families begin walking toward each other again. Not perfectly. Not instantly. But truly.

May this Thanksgiving be the place where judgment ends, healing begins, and gratitude opens a door no diagnosis or doctrine could ever unlock.