I thought this post would be created last week, but it seems today is the time that it is pressing so insistently that I cannot help but express it.
Isn't it interesting the perspective that gratitude gives us? I am certain that the reason we are commanded to be thankful is, like all other commandments, for our own benefit. My mom called me a few Sundays ago with a quote she had written in her scriptures, and then come across again that day. She said, "Our happiness is only as great as our gratitude."
When we walk with the perspective of gratitude, every aspect of our lives is elevated. Oftentimes when I kneel to thank God for the blessings He gives me, I feel entirely overcome. Why, I wonder, in my imperfection and failure, does He bless me so abundantly? It is a most humbling and deeply moving concept, one that, I believe, teaches us perfectly of His infinite love.
I gained some of that perspective with a phone call today. My mom's cousin, whom I worked with while I was in junior high, has a ten-year-old daughter battling her second round of leukemia. She spends nearly all of her time at Primary Children's Medical Center at her daughter's hospital bedside. Her family lives at the other end of the state, so she makes it home for one or two days most weeks to see her other young children and her husband before going back to the hospital. As I was making (ok, re-making after their own small efforts) my boys' beds today, I was considering what a blessing it is for me to be home with them. To tuck them into bed at night. To hug and kiss them when they wake up in the morning. To help them with the prayer over our lunch. To clean up their messes and make their beds. Why is it that God sees fit to bless me with motherhood? How thankful I am to Him for allowing me this experience.
As Jeff nears the end of his program and looks forward to the next step in his education, I have been feeling a little antsy about our living quarters. Our basement apartment is great, and has worked out better than I ever could have imagined. But I have let myself daydream of the day we will once again have a house. When the wind began to blow last night and the storm was so cold you knew it was now December regardless of what the calendar said, I was so thankful for our warm, safe place to live. I think of hundreds of thousands of people living in refugee camps or inadequate housing and ask myself, why does God bless me with such comfortable circumstances? And not only am I reminded of His love, but of my responsibility to Him.
For reasons I don't completely understand, God has seen fit to bless me with the greatest blessing of all - a testimony of His Son, Jesus Christ. And when I think of this most abundant blessing, and all that comes as a result of it, I am filled with a sense of duty. I know that where much is given, much is required. I know that because of
what I know, there are enormous expectations of me. And while I am inadequate to do all that I should, when I walk with gratitude, I am reminded that the Savior is with me every step of the way. How thankful I am for Him.
