It’s been days since we’ve seen the sun. Mother Nature seems to be trying to make up for all the days it didn’t rain earlier this spring and winter. Day after day, we’ve had drizzle with intermittent showers, which is allowing the water to soak into parched soil, and I am so grateful. We’ve needed the rain even as I yearn for bright sunny days. Spring is so glorious right now with blooming trees and spring flowers springing up seemingly everywhere, but with the gray days and damp atmosphere everything seems muted. Even so I am viewing the world through eyes of gratitude. I don’t want to sound like a Pollyanna, but the practice of gratitude can truly transform one’s life.
The thing about gratitude is that we don’t get to choose when we are grateful, as no matter how dark or gloomy the skies or the ups and downs of life, there is always something for which to be grateful. The practice of gratitude is not so much about the wonderful things that happen occasionally as it is finding all of the positives day after day that make life worth living. We can focus on the negatives or we can focus on the positives. It’s as simple as that. On the worst days possible, there is always something for which we can be grateful. But it takes intentionality, especially at first.
I’ve never suffered from chronic depression (for which I am grateful), so I will not even try to put myself in the place of those who do, but I’ve read studies that have been done with people who have been hospitalized with debilitating depression and brain fog. In control studies, gratitude had almost the same effect in stabilizing moods as taking medication! That strikes me as truly amazing. And those who participated didn’t need to feel grateful when they wrote down the things for which they recognized as positives.. The act of drawing their attention to another way of approaching life seemed to become transformative over a period of time. I am fully aware that it must take incredible effort at first to find things for which to be grateful when life feels so dark and gloomy, so I admire those who have clawed their way back to sanity and serenity through the practice of gratitude. And yet it seems such a simple thing…to acknowledge all of the things that go into making our lives possible . . . with an attitude of gratitude.
Several years ago I challenged the members of our congregation to find three things each day for which to be grateful and then bring their list back to share with us. I was struck by the response of several who came back with blank sheets, feeling that in order to be grateful, they had to find big and amazing things. To them it seemed trite to list the morning’s coffee, clean clothes, a warm house, a potted plant, a drink of water as something to put on their list. Yet, that is exactly the point. Once we become grateful for the little everyday things, the big things simply fall in place. Thus, when we are tested with hard times, we have learned to lean back on all of the little things to remind ourselves that even now, we are blessed. I am reminded of those lines in the Lord’s Prayer: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” What if the temptation is to take things for granted, as somehow due us, rather than the blessings that they are?
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference and to be grateful in and for all things.