Give Thanks for Nothing: The Grace in What We Avoid

Tommy Allsup died in early 2017. His name is unfamiliar to most. The rock-and-roll guitarist for Buddy Holly’s band should have died on February 3, 1959.

That was the date “the music died” (chronicled by Don McLean’s 1970 hit, American Pie). The small plane had too many would-be passengers than seats. So, a coin flip decided who went and who stayed.

Tommy Allsup lost to J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson. Allsup watched as the plane disappeared into the clouds. That plane crashed, killing the famous musicians on board.

Allsup could give thanks because nothing had happened to him. Could you?

A few years ago, a hit-and-run driver rear-ended my daughter on a major Dallas freeway. The back glass shattered. The insurance company totaled her car.

One item in that story is noteworthy. My daughter was sore but walked away with no broken bones and significant injury from the crumpled Prius. The insurance adjuster could not believe everyone escaped injury. It should have put people in the hospital, if not worse. My daughter’s baby (who is now 6) was not in the car at the time. Who knows what horror might have happened if she had been in the car? Of all the things that could have happened, nothing happened.

Thank God for nothing.

Think of all the things that have not happened to you.

• You did not get a job but found a better one.
• You missed the wreck that killed three on the freeway by 5 minutes.
• Planes crash, and you are not on them.
• Grandparents bury their grandchildren, but yours is not one of them.
• You don’t sleep on a hut’s dirt floor infested by parasites.

When feeling deprived, you can always think of how bad your life could be. Too many times, we strain to find the good in life. The best kind of gratitude is for what did not happen. Some of the grace of God comes in what we avoid and not what we experience.

In those cases, give thanks for nothing.