An Attitude of Gratitude

06-15-08

by Verna Harelson

Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19; Romans 5:1-5

I would like to tell you about Grace, a 13-year-old seventh grader at Camphor Mission School in Liberia. You helped provide a place for her to live and learn. You contributed many scholarships at the bargain price of $25 per year. You, with other members of the Oregon/Idaho Conference, provided her with a new well so that she would have safe water to drink.

Grace was very grateful. The only time that I saw her teary was in a worship service before we left the Camphor Mission. She was chosen to give us a gift from the students. She spoke a few words of thanks for our coming and helping them and their teachers. Then she said, "And a special thank you from the other students and I who are on scholarships, for we wouldn’t be here getting an education without your help."

Out of her gratitude came a quiet awareness of others and a willingness to help when a need arose. I first met her when I had my hands full of pictures and letters written by second graders. She saw my plight in trying to sort them on a student-sized desk. She helped by moving some furniture and relocating me to a table in the library. Once I was situated, she left for recess chatting with some friends. (Typical 13 year-old behavior)

Several days later, when one of our team members fell while walking cross the playground, Grace helped her to the porch where she proceeded to help her sit down, take off her shoe, scoop water from the nearby rain barrel, and wash her foot and ankle. I was blessed by witnessing this unaffected act of compassion.

Now this may not have been too remarkable for some 13 year olds, but Grace was living in the dormitory and going to school at Camphor Mission because she was an orphan. Her parents had been murdered in front of her and her sister during the Liberian Civil War. This incredible woman/child had lived through hell and yet was not wallowing in self pity, but noticed and responded when others needed help.

Paul says that God’s abundant love gives us the strength, and determination, and the ability to handle creatively anything that life brings us. This extravagant and extraordinary love of God gives us the power, just as it gave Jesus, Paul, Grace, you, and me, to overcome the trials of the world.

Grace knew that by the grace of God and with the help of God’s people, she was safe and nurtured and she could share with others out of the bounty of love that she had received. She personalized Jesus’ words to the leper in Matthew 8:4 "Your cleansed and grateful life will bear witness to what I have done." She also learned in church to responsively: "God is good…all the time. All the time…God is good."

Many of us in our rich and relatively peaceful country have trouble shifting into that place of strength and awareness of God’s Spirit within us. One of the ways to help us shift is to remember our blessings. Grace must have known this intuitively and practiced, because she did it so well.

We can all us practice, me included, so let’s do that now.

Imagine you are having what a friend called a "pity party"; fully of self-pity and judgment about others have more things and fewer problems than you. What else are you telling yourself? Do you criticize yourself and think that you can’t handle this challenge; do you say that they can because they are more attractive, richer, smarter, happier, healthier than you?

As you become aware of your self-talk, tune in to your body. How does your head and neck feel? How is your stomach or your heart? What about your breathing?

Now, take several deep breaths, and go to a different place of gratitude and thanksgiving. Feel sunshine on your face. Remember other blessing that you have; flowers, clouds, and smiling faces, and the eyes to see them; music, singing birds, children giggling, and the ears to hear them. What other blessing do you remember?

How does you head and neck feel now? How are your stomach and your heart? What about your breathing?

God has created us to be grateful. All of our systems work better in this peaceful place. In this place "we open the door to God and discover at the same moment that God has already thrown his door open to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory." We are reconciled and welcomed you home. You can return to this place whenever you choose.

As you refocus your mind on the here and now, let us take what we learned about our placed of judgment and our places of gratitude and remember our fathers. Which place do you go to when you think of them?

Do you focus on things they did "wrong", on hurts, regrets, and shortcomings? Or, do you remember how they tried and were able to love you. Some were able to be great role models of love and gratitude and some were not. Even if they were not able, they gave you the gift of life, and you can choose to live, with God’s help, and to continue to practice going to a place of gratitude.

It is an act of courage and of faith to praise and thank God when life’s circumstances are not what we had hoped for. At this point, offering praise to God, not just when we feel like it, not just when life is rosy, or not just when our prayers have been answered to our liking, the sacrifice of thanksgiving really counts as we remember God’s constant faithfulness to us. An attitude of gratitude makes a difference to God and to us, and opens the door to reconciliation.

Matthew 5:3-5 "We continue to shout our praises even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary – we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!"

For all of this and more, we are truly grateful.