A wife and mother of four children sighed as she faced the kitchen sink after dinner. It was overflowing with dirty dishes which she had to wash, dry and put away. Suddenly, she remembered the lines she had heard as a child: ‘Thank God for dirty dishes, they have a tale to tell: While other folks go hungry, we are eating pretty well. With home and health and happiness, we shouldn’t want to fuss; for by this stack of evidence, God is very good to us.’
Count your blessings and thank God for every living moment, for God’s generosity to you is infinite.
Why should I be grateful? Most of us would agree that complaining and criticising can make life bitter and sour, while being grateful makes us positive, happy and optimistic; it helps us see the bright side of life.
It teaches us the art of appreciation. Some experts believe that we lack in the spirit of gratitude because we take things for granted. The street urchin into whose hands you drop a packet of biscuits looks up at you with a smile. He has known what it is to be hungry. He knows the value of those biscuits. What do we do when someone takes the trouble to shop and plan and cook and clean, so that a plate of hot food is put before us at regular intervals? We make faces and complain that the dish is either too spicy or not spicy enough; that it is boring; it is not our favourite recipe that has been served; and that the vegetables on the plate are not the ones we like.
Maybe we need to go without the things we take for granted, to be able to appreciate what we have. Now give me one good reason why we should allow ourselves to go through a loss just to realise the value of what we already have?
When you become aware of all that you have to be grateful for, when you actually begin to count your blessings, you will be overwhelmed with gratitude for all that God has bestowed on you so unstintingly. Your peaceful sleep, your loved ones whose dearest wish is just to see you happy, your friends who add value to your life, your good health which you utterly fail to appreciate until you fall ill, the fresh air and sunlight around you, the marvels of technology which have made your life so easy, society and community which let you live in peace and order – where would you be without them all?
Let us thank God for sorrow -- it teaches us pity and compassion. Let us thank God for pain and illness -- we learn forbearance and patience. Let us thank God for friends who let us down and hurt us -- for we learn the divine quality of forgiveness therefrom. Let us thank God for suffering -- it teaches us courage. Let us thank God for disappointments -- for they teach us to be ready for His appointment!
When we thank the Lord all the time, we build for ourselves a ladder of consciousness on which we can climb and touch the very pinnacle of peace.
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