Where Gratitude Could Replace Spiritual Entitlement

Let me start with a confession, and then we can pretend I didn't say it out loud.

The amount of time I spend in negative self-talk — or, let's be honest, conversations with my Father that I'd never let anyone overhear — would absolutely wreck the perfectly maintained image I portray on a daily basis.

The one where I'm steady. Sunny. "She's just so strong." Cute. Sure. Let's go with that.

Behind the smile and the iced coffee with a splash of non-fat milk that barely changes the color? I have thought, "I've been faithful, so why is this still hard?" more times than I can count.

I have treated my obedience like a vending machine. I put in the quarters — said yes to fostering, said yes to the hard, said yes when no would have been so much more comfortable — and then I stood there with my arms crossed waiting for my treat to drop. Where's my snack, Jesus? I paid.

In the depth of grief, when the storm refused to stop raging, I have thought, "I've been through enough. I deserve an easier season." As if survival is a punch card and at ten holes you get a free latte. As if what I lived through somehow obligated heaven to hand me something easier next.

I have heard the reunification stories. The redemption stories. The "and then the bio mom got clean and they're all in family photos now" stories. The adoption day pictures with the matching shirts and the courtroom confetti. And four years in — four years, friend — doing the hard, unseen, unglamorous, behind-the-scenes work of loving kids who didn't ask for me and loving parents who sometimes can't stand me, I have thought: "Look at them getting blessed. And I'm over here doing the actual work without the reward."

Hello, spiritual older brother in the Prodigal Son story. My name is Mary. I have access to everything the Father has — everything — and I'm mad about a party.

If your skin is crawling reading this, good. Mine was crawling writing it. What you just read was entitlement oozing out of my pores, and I want you to see it clearly because I think a lot of us are walking around with it tucked under a worship playlist and a cute caption.

Here's the part that gets me though: in the moment, it doesn't feel like entitlement. It feels like fairness. It feels like math. "God, I gave You X. The reasonable return is Y. Where is my Y?" And underneath the math is an assumption so quiet I didn't even know I was making it:

That grace is a ladder I climbed. Not a gift I received.

That blessings are wages, not gifts.

That God is the debtor and I am the creditor calling in the account.

Read those three lines again. Slowly. Because if you've ever wondered why your faith feels exhausting, why your prayers feel transactional, why every hard season feels personally unfair instead of part of a bigger story — there's a pretty good chance one of those three sentences is living rent-free in your theology.

It was in mine. For years.

So where could gratitude replace this whole tired, bitter, hard-to-live-with posture? Everywhere. Everywhere, friend.

Because gratitude doesn't deny that fostering is hard.

It doesn't pretend grief didn't happen or that four years of pouring out isn't, in fact, four years of pouring out.

Gratitude isn't toxic positivity in a Christian t-shirt. It's not "just be thankful!" while your heart is breaking in the school pickup line.

Gratitude is the slow, daily, sometimes through-gritted-teeth practice of remembering who is actually holding the pen.

It's looking at the same calling that exhausted me yesterday and saying, "God, I don't see the full picture. But You do. And the fact that You chose me — chose ME — to be in this kid's story for this chapter, that's not a debt You owe me. That's a gift You gave me."

It's looking at the reunification story that twisted me up and saying, "That's not my measuring stick. That's their miracle. My miracle is different, and it's not late — it's just not finished."

It's looking at the breath in my lungs, the people at my table, the hard-won lessons I'd never sign up for again but wouldn't trade, the calling that wrecks me and rebuilds me on a monthly basis, the iced coffee — all of it — and remembering: Every. Single. Thing. Is a gift. Not a wage. Not a payout. Not a transaction. A gift.

Here's what I'm learning, and I say learning because I'm not done and neither are you:

Entitlement makes me tired. Bitter. Hard to live with. It turns my prayers into invoices and my obedience into receipts I'm waving in God's face. It steals my joy and hands me a clipboard.

Gratitude makes me light. Dangerous in the good way. The kind of dangerous that can sit in the hardest places, with the hardest people, in the hardest seasons, and still smile because the smile isn't dependent on the circumstance — it's dependent on the One who hasn't moved.

My race is being run every day. Not somebody else's. Mine.

My Father needs me in this season, with these people — these specific, complicated, gorgeous, infuriating, beloved people — because I cannot see the full picture. But He can. He can see how my words, my showing up, my staying when leaving would be easier, my apologies when I get it wrong, my boundaries when I need them, my laughter when the day is heavy — He can see how all of it is moving the people He needs moved.

For His will. Not mine.

So if you're four years in. Or four months in. Or four minutes from sending a text you shouldn't send because the entitlement is loud and the bitterness is louder — Pause.

Ask the question I had to ask: Am I treating grace like a ladder or a gift?

And then, slowly, like a person learning to walk again after a long sit-down: Start with one thank you. Just one. Not the performative kind. The honest kind. The "God, I don't get it and I'm tired and I'm still grateful You picked me for this" kind.

That's where it starts.

That's where the older brother could've walked into the party instead of pouting outside of it.

That's where I'm choosing to walk today.

And the iced coffee? Yeah. That's a gift too.

If this hit a nerve, it was supposed to. Forward it to the friend who's also pretending she's fine. We're in this together.