#5 Be Grateful
Dear R&M,
Gratitude is a sentiment we don’t exercise or express often enough. If as a rule you don’t find yourself being grateful once a day, you aren’t practicing gratitude.
All of us find it easy to talk or at least grumble about what’s not going well in our lives — a friend disappoints, we don’t do well on a test, we don’t have anything to wear, a boy or girl doesn’t respond to us they way we wanted. It’s easy to feel Why me?
Yet, each morning, when we wake up, enjoy that banana-strawberry smoothie or garam chai on the balcony, listen to our favorite song, walk in the woods, spend some time in the library or gather with friends, get a massage (medical you say) or make a pencil sketch we are doing better than most of the world. And that’s not even counting all that we have — our health, our possessions from the silly to the sublime, our family, friends and community — our day is filled with things, nice, good things for which we should feel grateful a miserly once a day at the very least!
As the good Book puts it
“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love endures forever”.
Psalm 118:1, NIV
A few more prayers of gratitude can be found here.
