Revive Our Hearts

Dana Gresh: Mary Cassian says she's humbled by her friends grateful responses in the midst of suffering.

Mary Cassian: It's such a good reminder. It's a a it's a sharpening reminder that God gives us the ability to make that choice to choose gratitude. Really what we're choosing when we choose gratitude is we are choosing him. We are we are choosing to see how big he is and to be grateful for that.

Dana Gresh: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Gratitude. For November 6th, 2026, I'm Dana Gresh.

Mary Cassian: Today on Revive Our Hearts, we're finishing up an interview that Dana conducted with our friend Mary Cassian. If you've listened to Revive Our Hearts for any length of time, you've probably heard Mary's voice before. She's a wife, she's a mom, professor, an international speaker, and an author. Her most recent book is titled Growing Grateful. The subtitle is Live Happy, Peaceful, and Content. It's a beautiful book. You're going to love it, and it's perfect for this time of year with the Thanksgiving holiday just around the corner here in the United States. Today Dana starts us off with a question.

Dana Gresh: How you doing with your gratefulness? If you were to actually have a a grateful meter in front of you right now and you had to honestly put the knob on an accurate assessment of how you're doing in that area, would it be all the way up pinning it to a 10 or would you be all the way back at the beginning just starting your grateful journey, just learning how to be grateful? Well, no matter where you are, I think you're going to be encouraged by Mary today. Mary, welcome back.

Mary Cassian: Thanks, Dana. Good to be with you.

Dana Gresh: Can I ask you a question?

Mary Cassian: Sure.

Dana Gresh: Uh that is why you're here, for me to ask you questions and you to say smart things. Were you always grateful?

Mary Cassian: No, I wasn't always grateful. And no, I'm not always grateful even now. And yet, I'm far more grateful than I used to be. And I remember when I was younger at the beginning of my gratitude journey. And this this is a great Revive Our Hearts story because this goes back even before Revive Our Hearts to when Elisabeth Elliot, Gateway to Joy, which was the precursor to the Revive Our Hearts radio program, Elisabeth Elliot had a radio program. And I was a young mom and it was a new experience for me to be out of the professional world and into the diaper world.

And I I can't say that I was super grateful at that time. I was grumbling. I I probably had a little bit of resentment in terms of, you know, why am I the one that always gets the dirty jobs and on and on and on?

Dana Gresh: Did you miss being at work?

Mary Cassian: I miss being at work. Yeah, I miss the whole professional buzz and the whole, you know, professional life. Uh it was an adjustment for me. And I remember listening to the radio one morning as I was going about my household things that I was doing and Elisabeth Elliot was on. And there was a quote that stopped me dead in my tracks. And this was the quote. She said, it is always possible to be thankful for what is given rather than to complain about what is not given. One or the other becomes a habit of life.

Dana Gresh: Mm.

Mary Cassian: And that just stopped me dead in my tracks. And in fact, I was so struck by that that I went running to grab a pan and a sticky and I wrote it down. It is always possible to be thankful for what is given rather than to complain about what is not given. One or the other becomes a habit of life. And so I had it on that sticky. And I kept that sticky for probably 10 years until the ink faded and I couldn't read it anymore. And so that quote was on my fridge. I put that quote on my mirror.

I put that quote in my office. I put that quote everywhere to remind me or I moved it around everywhere um to remind me that it is possible to be thankful about what I'm given.

Dana Gresh: You know, I'm seeing women right now grabbing sticky notes in their homes, pulling over to the from car pool to grab them from their purses.

Mary Cassian: Yeah, go grab a sticky note. It's always possible to be thankful. And you know what, coming from Elisabeth Elliot, that had some bite to it because extra because Elisabeth Elliot had some tough circumstances in her life. I mean her her first husband was murdered. Uh another husband died of cancer. And so when she was talking about it's always possible to be thankful, she had some life circumstances that were really tough, that really could have caused her to be grumbly and to be resentful. And yet she chose gratitude.

Dana Gresh: So Mary, how did that impact you as a young stay-at-home mom? What was the difference?

Mary Cassian: It made a difference because as soon as I got my eyes off myself and started thinking that yes, it is possible to be thankful for what is given. And of course, Elisabeth Elliot came at gratitude from a Christian perspective. She said, you're not necessarily grateful for your the circumstance you're in, but you're grateful for the God who helps you get through that circumstance. You're grateful for the God who gives you joy. You're grateful for the God who enables you to endure every storm. And I think of 1 Thessalonians 5:18. We've We've mentioned this verse a couple times over the last few days.

Give thanks in everything in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. And you know what, that's so counterintuitive. And I think that the Bible gives us that instruction because we have a tendency to complain and grumble when life gets hard.

Dana Gresh: Mm. You know, I've been soaking myself in Psalm 131 this past few weeks and months because it's a three verse chapter about being content in God's presence. And David either wrote it. I mean scholars don't really know, but they think he wrote it either when he his marriage was strained because his wife was mocking him for the way he worshiped the Lord publicly or during a time when Saul was seeking to destroy him and cancel him. That's what we call it today.

Mary Cassian: Cancel culture.

Dana Gresh: Cancel culture, but this was a little more deadly of a cancel culture.

Mary Cassian: Yeah, an extreme cancel.

Dana Gresh: And and yet he finds contentment. How? By getting his eyes off himself. Going back to what you just said a moment ago, that is the key. In our selfie culture, I think our discontent and our lack of gratitude is fueled and fed by a self focus.

Mary Cassian: Exactly. Absolutely. We see the bigness of the problem and we see the bigness of the challenge facing us or the bigness of the unhappiness or discontentment or the issue becomes so big in our eyes and because we have a self focus. And if we were to get our eyes off of self and off of the bigness of of the problem onto the bigness of God, our hearts would swell with gratitude. And you know what, you mentioned David, you mentioned the Psalms. And David actually had a lot of hard things in his life, a lot of difficulties in his marriage, a lot of difficulties in his family, a lot of difficulties just with actually persecution and people well the Saul was was seeking his life.

He wanted to kill him. And then just with being king, there were a lot of pressures. There are so many different things going on in David's life, so many reasons where he could have grumbled and complained. And And sometimes he did take his heartaches to the Lord and poured out his heart to the Lord. And yet he made a habit of counseling his soul to be grateful during tough times. Psalm 103:2 says, my soul So he's talking to himself. He's saying self, soul, my soul. Praise the Lord and do not forget all his benefits. So he's giving himself some advice there.

And he's saying

Dana Gresh: Yeah, you know I love that.

Mary Cassian: Yeah.

Dana Gresh: That is biblical self talk right there. In a world where we're always talking about self talk, self care, self this, self that, I think just like gratitude can be directed to an improper source, not correctly attributed to the source of everything we have. I think that our self talk can often be misdirected. And here we see David saying, Saul, praise the Lord.

Mary Cassian: Yeah.

Dana Gresh: Saul.

Mary Cassian: Yeah, exactly. Self talk. Like he's giving himself a pep talk and he's just going, come on. Like you know, come on, snap out of it. Praise the Lord. Do not forget all his benefits because we tend to forget the benefits when we are facing times of crisis and when we are facing hard times.

Dana Gresh: And you're not saying that we have to have a fake gratitude, a super smile that never goes away, that we can't grieve, that we can't ask God our hard questions. In fact, I think we have lots of examples in scripture of people like David and prophets who they did grumble to God. They brought him their questions, their doubts, their laments. Right?

Mary Cassian: I think there's a difference between lamenting and grumbling. Actually, I think that that when we lament, we recognize the pain and the difficulty and how hard it is. And we bring it before the Lord and we ask the Lord for assistance in getting through it. We ask him to solve it. We ask him to resolve it. We ask him to bring his power into the situation and change it. But that's different than grumbling against God and saying God Like shaking our fists and God, how dare you? How dare you let this happen in my life?

I think that coming to God with our heartache is biblical, but coming to him with a fist shaking in his face saying, how dare you do this? Is is petulant. And so there there's there's a difference. And yet even in the deep sorrow and pain and hardship And many of you listeners are facing situations like that. You're facing relationship problems. You're facing problems perhaps with a child who is wayward. You're facing health problems, cancer, perhaps a battle with cancer and chemo and what that looks like and the endless trips to the doctor. Perhaps you have a child who is who is struggling and suffering.

I know that pain of having a special needs child and watching that child suffer. And And we can bring all those difficult, hard, painful, painful situations to the Lord and lay them out before him and come to him with our tears because he keeps our tears in his bottle. And yet at the same time, we can counsel our souls. My soul, praise the Lord and do not forget all his benefits. Do not forget. Do not forget, Mary, when you're in a hard time. Do not forget that God is big. This problem looks so big and yet God is bigger and he is on the throne and he is in control.

Dana Gresh: How do I maintain gratefulness when I'm feeling out of control and weak?

Mary Cassian: The apostle Paul actually spoke about that when he talked about really difficult times in his life. And he said, you know what, I take pleasure in weaknesses. That didn't mean he enjoyed it, but it basically said, I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for weaknesses and insults and catastrophes and persecutions and pressures. And then he gave the reason and this is in second Corinthians chapter 12 verses 9 and 10. I'm grateful for all these things, all these hard, horrible things for this reason because of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. In other words, when I do not have the capacity to face this massive challenge, my Savior and my God will show that he does.

He will show himself to be strong in me even in the most horrible situation. And you know we've seen that in the lives of our friends. Uh we have another friend, Kimberly Wagner, who's been on Revive Our Hearts often. And And uh she and LeRoy are walking through a a terrible health situation with LeRoy.

Dana Gresh: Yeah. Uh he has what on the McGill pain index is like the most painful condition known to man. Like he is in chronic, constant nerve pain debilitating at times all day long.

Mary Cassian: Excruciating all the time, all the time. And yet I look at this woman and I go, wow. She is someone who shows me the strength of Christ. She just She exudes it. And she would say that she feels very weak and very unable to face the challenges of her life and and what LeRoy is going through. And yet there's this beautiful, sweet, sweet reliance on God and just the strength of God that that strengthens her from day to day, from moment to moment.

Dana Gresh: You know what else, Mary? She is always praying for us. When we text back and forth, I'm like, how are you praying for us? How are you noticing my small problems when you have these very big ones? On top of the health problems, they're both not able to work. He's not able to work at all. She's able to work far less and she's praying for me. That's a grateful person.

Mary Cassian: That is a grateful person. And we have the blessing and benefit of seeing so many friends of ours who are going through difficult things and yet who teach us uh how to be grateful. And you know when I when I see Kimberly and when I see even Nancy and when I see these friends of mine going through struggles, I go, my struggles are so small. And yet I grumble and they don't. And it it's such a good reminder. It's a a it's a sharpening reminder that God gives us the ability to make that choice to choose gratitude.

Really what we're choosing when we choose gratitude is we are choosing him. We are choosing to see how big he is and to be grateful for that.

Dana Gresh: Yeah. This kind of gratitude goes way beyond what we hear about and celebrate on Thanksgiving day. It's deeper than the whole let's go around the table and say something we're thankful for.

Mary Cassian: Dana, as Nancy said, gratitude is a lifestyle. It's a hard fought, grace infused biblical lifestyle.

Dana Gresh: So so Mary, um tell me about a time when you had to fight hard for gratitude.

Mary Cassian: I had to fight hard for gratitude when I was actually hit uh kind of bad to worse circumstance. Uh there's a period of about 2 years where things went from bad to worse. My son was uh lost his hearing. So I was faced with having a special needs child. I uh miscarried twins. I lost my babies. My other son ended up in the hospital with a severe staff infection uh and it was uh it was a grave situation. We could have lost him at that time. My My husband's appendix burst. Our church was having some crisis in terms of just church conflict.

There was family conflict. Uh the bottom fell out of my husband's business. So there was financial pressures. There were just every way I looked, every direction I looked, there were difficulties and hardships. And I remember at times getting up in the morning and it seemed so dark and it wasn't And I'm not talking about a physical kind of dark. It does stay dark here in the winter for a long time in the morning, but that's not the darkness I'm talking about. It was a darkness of my spirit where it was just dark dark and heavy.

And I remember sometimes I had to excuse myself from from even the family and what was going on and to go into a room and get on my knees and beg the Lord to intercede and to give me the grace and to give me the strength and to give me the right kind of attitude to deal with the day. And where I had to do that repeatedly it was a fight. It was a struggle. It wasn't just, oh let's just kind of meditate on something really happy. This is a pretty flower and I feel so happy now.

It was like in the deepest darkest hardest, most excruciating, painful trial. I was able to fight for gratitude and find it and not because of anything in me, but only because of Jesus and because of his power and his strength and because I could be grateful in all things always because of him.

Dana Gresh: And how did that impact the way you were able to live out those hard days? It just enabled me to put one foot in front of the next. Yeah, I can't say that, oh there was this amazing transformation because it was a hard fought. And hard fought means step by step, moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day. It's not like it's not like I all of a sudden had all kinds of strength where I could take on the next few months. It was no I I received grace for when I needed it. And that's that's that quote also.

I love that that about Nancy's quote, grace infused. It's like it's like God put an IV into my arm. And when I needed the strength, he provided it. When I needed the gratitude, he provided it. When I pressed on the button, I got that infusion of what I needed. And it was hard fought. It was extremely hard fought. And so if you are listening today and you can relate if you're going through something that is so difficult and excruciatingly painful and if you are facing a situation where things are going from bad to worse and you don't see the light at the end of the tunnel, I just want to encourage you to look to God and get your eyes off of the bigness of the problem and put them onto the bigness of God and be grateful in your heart with praise and worship toward him for who he is.

And he will give you strength for the next step. Mary, I'm thinking of that verse from Philippians 4. Do not be anxious about anything. And if we stopped there, we would keep being anxious because we would still be thinking about the bigness of the problem. But it goes on to say, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

Mary Cassian: That's so interesting to me, isn't it? It's like we come with prayer and supplication. We're taking our problems before him. And yet we forget that little phrase with thanksgiving. The gratitude is part of the supplication. The gratitude is part of being able to take all those heavy problems and laying them at the foot of the cross.

Dana Gresh: Mary Cassian is going to be back to pray, but first I want to really encourage you. You do need to fill your mind with truth about gratitude. I mean when I'm in those dark seasons, I wake up and I think, Lord, I just want to stick my head under the covers and stay in bed today, maybe with some ice cream. But I drag myself to my Bible. I drag myself to the Christian book I'm reading that will just prime the pump of gratitude in my life. And somehow 15, 20, 30, 45 minutes later, I feel like I have just enough strength to put one foot in front of the other.

You may need that kind of strength right now. Can I say before you turn to a book to find that, before you turn to Revive Our Hearts, turn to God. Turn to his word. Soak yourself in his truth. And you might be surprised how much it will change your perspective. But of course, other reminders they can be helpful as well. That's why our team chose the theme Wonder of the Word for our 2027 wall calendar. Wherever you hang it, your kitchen, office, I don't know, your bedroom, you'll get a daily dose of juice to get your mind on truth rather than your circumstances.

We'll send you that calendar if you request it when you make a gift of any amount to support the ministry of Revive Our Hearts. When you do that, you're helping us encourage women all around the world to make God's word central to their lives. And the calendar is just a way of saying thank you. You can make that donation at reviveourhearts.com or by calling us at 1-800-569-5959. Again, that's reviveourhearts.com. Ask for the 2027 wall calendar when you give. Speaking of women all around the world, we've got an international conference coming up next week. That's right.

It's almost time for Mujer Verdadera and I can't wait to be there. If you're a Spanish speaking listener, it's not too late to join us. The conference is in Miami if you're in that area or you can join us by way of live stream. Visit mujerverdadera26.com to get more information. Well, I hope you'll have a great weekend and that you're able to worship the Lord in fellowship with other believers. Next week we'll continue talking about gratitude with Sierra Deer King, Nancy, and Barbara Rainey. Now we realize that just because we said you can be grateful in hard times doesn't mean that suddenly you are overflowing with thankfulness.

So I wonder, Mary, would you pray for our dear friends who just need a little bit of help with Thanksgiving today?

Mary Cassian: Heavenly Father, I pray, Lord, that you will touch the woman who is crying out in her heart right now saying this is me. I need help. I'm grumbly, resenting my circumstances. I don't even know how I can choose to be grateful in this horrible situation. Father, I pray that she will be able to take her request to you, that you may be able to minister to her as she lays out her burdens and her pain before you. And in everything, in her circumstance with prayer and supplication, that she may bring that before you with gratitude and thanksgiving for who you are.

Not that she's grateful for her circumstance, but she's grateful for the God who is big enough to see her through. So Father, I pray for her to have strength for today and strength to put the one foot in front of the next and to keep going and to hang on to you with hope and joy and with gratitude. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Dana Gresh: This program is a listener supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.