It was only after an emotionally upsetting experience that I began to record in my daily journal “thank you God for a day of peace, of safety of joy, of hope, of good health and protection.” I truly learned the spirit of gratitude as an attitude as a spirit of appreciation to be expressed all year.
As a mother of three children I made it a practice for a number of years for each of us to write a list of all we were grateful for to be shared with each other.
I wished for all of us to wake up with a thankful heart aware of the true beauty that surrounds us before some of the luster is lost.
The need for gratitude really hit home to me some years ago when a little girl told me that she didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving but she really liked Christmas because she received gifts. Gratitude is not only a state of mind that needs to be taught as well as caught from the spirit of the parents. It may seem harder
to learn the spirit of being thankful before our losses are meted out in life coming in the form of death,divorce or disaster.
It’s so much easier to reach out and embrace each other when we are still in arms reach than to call our blessing back once they are gone.
Perhaps it takes a necessary loss such as Judith Viorst discussed in her book by the title of Necessary Losses.
I can relate my experience of going into an orphanage as a teenager when I was so devastated when I saw the rugs being jerked out from under my feet. I wanted to stop the hands of the clock as I watched the minutes ticking away at my security as my foster parents loaded up my stuff in the car to go the orphanage on May 31, 1962
My life became surreal when I heard my housemother screaming inside the house constructed of cinder blocks as empty and hollow as they were devoid of love inside the place that was to my home for the next four years.
The one thread I could hang onto was that I had just become a Christian and I knew that “All things work together for good to those that love the Lord.”
I think I even sensed that this was all working out to my advantage even though it wasn’t a loving environment for me to find myself in — but I did have the courage to report the abuse in a day that reporting abuse was unheard of.
Reporting abuse added a shield of protection around me,
It’s easier to to practice reaching out when we aren’t so needy, but it may take that necessary loss before we develop our coping skills and courage in the practice of risking — of opening up –of giving ourselves to others.
What I’m most grateful for throughout the year is my family’s genetic traits, my bounce, my vibrant health, my talents, my ability to communicate, the resilience I’ve gained through suffering, through adversity, the skills I possess in my spontaneous childlike personality that sets me apart.
I’m moved with thankfulness that I possess which is not only genetically-based but is achieved through through adversity.
I’m thankful for having found the Pelican State at a time when I was coming of age. I’m magnetically drawn and bonded to the lovely people who make up this state.
For what else is there if we aren’t thankful for what we possess?
Contact Sarah at [email protected]