Today More Than Ever Gratitude Is Everything
By David Weber
With multiple lockdowns, social isolation and Covid-19 hanging around much longer than anticipated, we find ourselves weary and searching for happiness. In a recent New York Times article, the central concept was around the word languishing. The author summarized it this way: “Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield. And it might be the dominant emotion of 2021.”
Let’s face it, many of us are struggling. Looking to find joy and happiness in a challenging time. Looking to find hope in what seems to be a very uncertain future.
This famous quote from Pope St. John Paul II is a good reminder for us today. “Remember the past with gratitude. Live the present with enthusiasm. Look forward to the future with confidence.”
How do we get our enthusiasm back? How do we look forward to the future with confidence? It starts by being grateful for all that God gives us – the good and the challenging. As Neal Donald Walsch says: “The struggle ends when gratitude begins.”
What do you have to be grateful for? What are you grateful for when you look back at your own past? Take some time after reading this and make a list. Take your time and really reflect on all of the things you have today – and have been given to carry you to this present moment? It will far and away outweigh your list of concerns.
“The secret of happiness is to live moment by moment and to thank God for what He is sending us every day in His goodness.” St. Gianna Beretta Molla reminds us to live in the present moment – and to live in a place of gratitude. “Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgiving, turn routine jobs into joy and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” William Arthur Wards perspective really resonates with me – especially during these “ordinary” days of Covid. With gratitude, we can transform our days – and our lives.
How do we express our gratitude? St. Theresa of Calcutta said “the best way to show my gratitude to God is to accept everything, even my problems, with joy.” We must remember that our lives are not our own – they are a gift from God.
How can we accept our problems and challenges – along with all of the gift God has given us with joy? Thomas Merton has this wonderful perspective: “To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.”
As humans, we are always longing for something. Some new experience to change our lives for the better. We are all anxious about what we have – what we don’t have…what we should have. This pandemic has put our lives on pause in many ways. It has, in many ways, created an anxious view if the world at its future.
Let’s reflect on this wonderful piece of scripture and be grateful for all that God has put in our lives and for his everlasting love.
“Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” - Philippians 4:6-7
Finally, G.K. Chesterton said that “when it comes to life, the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”
Time for me to take less for granted and centre my life around gratitude.
