A Life of Gratitude

I have a 30 minute commute to work -- not too bad when compared to the rest of the commuting world -- and to pass the time I listen to audio books.

Listening to this one book, this teenage character describes how his mother's life is just one disaster after another and how she never seems to get ahead and I found myself thinking, "I know just how you feel." But, if I'm being honest here, that's not really true.

I do know how it feels to feel like everything you touch turns out wrong, and how even when you're trying to do something right, it blows up in your face. But in reality, I find myself more and more living a life of gratitude.

As I get older, the things I am grateful for change. Every night I get into bed and say, "Thank you, Lord, for a soft, comfortable bed," because I know there are people out there who are sleeping in the streets. When I eat a meal I send up an offering of thanks because there are people who don't have the means to feed themselves or are stuck eating pre-packaged food because they never learned to cook. The simplest of tasks become, in and of themselves, an opportunity for gratitude, because there are many who cannot perform even the smallest task.

Recently I had the experience of sitting still for ten whole minutes with nothing to do but reflect on the prior week and I found myself thinking about how fortunate I am and how many things for which I have to be grateful.

I find that if you are grateful for what you do have, you don't spend much time thinking about what you don't. Even when things go wrong I am thankful that they weren't worse, because they very easily could have been. And when they are good, I make sure that I take a moment to send up a prayer of thanksgiving to the One who made it all happen.