Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
For most of you readers around the world this will be easy: practice gratitude.
For those of you in the US, it will be harder: tomorrow is Thanksgiving, a time of weary travel, bad weather, overeating, too many relatives, aggressively bad advertising, fierce shopping and football games in which half of everybody loses. Practice gratitude anyway.
Gratitude is not a feeling; it’s a practice. It’s a relationship. You can be thankful for something, but you’re grateful to somebody. Gratitude is an appreciative receptiveness, a willingness to be present to blessings given to you that you can’t create yourself. Since blessings are always present you can be grateful even in bad situations. When you bump your head, be grateful you have one, and that you can feel. When you don’t feel grateful is when you need the most practice. No matter what happens, say thank you, and practice gratitude until you discover what you’re grateful for.
In gratitude for family and the gift of being able to visit, I’m taking tomorrow off. What do you say?
…
You’re welcome.
_____________________
Weather Report
Grace,
floods of gifts.
showers of blessing,
piling up in drifts
until you’re six feet under.
Get out your shovel.
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve
______________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail
write to me at unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com.