The Meaning of Gratitude, Grace: Count Your Blessings
Tragedy? Always one phone call away, but gifts are all around
Our friend Tom was in surgery, so our fellowship group prayed for him while talking about gratitude springing from grace.
“If you’re grateful, you can’t be unhappy, the two just don’t walk hand in hand,’’ Peter Kennedy often said.
The meaning of gratitude: springing from the Latin word “gratus,’’ gratitude means “pleasing” or “thankful.” Gratus provides the root word of grace, grateful, gracious, gratify, gratitude, ingratitude, gratuity, and gratuitous.
Those unique but related words also mean: a gift
Everything in life is a gift. St. Maria Faustina Kowalska considered suffering a great gift because pain is a teacher, and God can take our suffering and turn it into something greater.
“People think pain is the worst thing but it’s the only thing that made me surrender,’’ one of our dear friends who overcame alcoholism, gambling and homelessness taught us.
That’s why Americans say “no pain, no gain,’’ the way the Poles say “no cross, no crown.’’
“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,” (Romans…
