Gratitude

This week I was challenged about gratitude. A woman from my church was very sick. Within hours of getting out of hospital, she sent me a beautiful email, praising God for her treatment and the beautiful sunshine. I felt challenged by this. Here is a woman in poor health and pain, singing Gods praises. How easily I fall into the trap of moaning and groaning, worrying about problems and forgetting to give thanks. This woman had every right to express worry, but she made a different choice, and her action left me feeling inspired and challenged to express gratitude.

So I decided to follow her lead, and I took several opportunities to voice my gratitude. As I did this, something happened. I realized that I couldn't express gratitude and worry at the same time. The two are mutually exclusive.

And then it occurred to me - why should God give me what I'm asking for if I can't even say thanks for what I've already been given? At those times when I don't think I've got anything to be grateful for, am I being realistic, am I looking hard enough?

Gratitude comes from God, from a spirit of abundance, from love. Love is costly, it is self sacrificing. It takes courageous, selfless love to give thanks like this woman did, to see beauty in the midst of her own pain and suffering. She then took action, she expressed her joy to another person, and we were both blessed by the experience. I have learnt from this the importance of voicing gratitude, or we run the risk of feeding our fears. Christians are instructed to BE grateful and not to BE worried. These are states of mind. In other words, we have a choice in how we respond to the challenges life presents us, as was so beautifully demonstrated to me by a very gracious woman.