Thoughts on Thankfulness

photo by Nat

I was too caught up in "being" thankful at Canadian Thanksgiving to really talk about it much... but now that it is the end of November, the Christmas baking and packaging has yet to start and all of my American friends are busy celebrating Thanksgiving, I have more time on my hands to just reflect on Thankfulness.

When I think of the heavy depression that darkened my life just four short years ago, the darkness that shrouded everything, everywhere I looked, I am truly thankful for the ability to "see" and "be" thankful. Learning to practice thankfulness in the every day, to recognize the gifts and beauty in what we commonly refer to as the "mundane", to see that every thing, every person is inevitably a reflection of the Creator and Lord of all... recognizing this, attuning my eyes to search out and see the One behind all, every sunrise, every sunset; every crawling thing and every colored leaf; every moment and every breath. This has been my source of healing and hope, joy and strength.

When Thanksgiving rolls around, the thing I am most thankful for, is the thankful spirit that is growing within me each and every day of the year. It is the best gift I could ever ask for. Because with a thankful spirit, come what may, I won't lose heart and I will find the beauty in the ugly as Ann so perfectly refers to it.

May we all grow in thankfulness in the coming year.

The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings! ~Henry Ward Beecher

Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It's a way to live. ~Jackie Windspear

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving. ~H.U. Westermayer

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. ~G.K. Chesterton

You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink. ~G.K. Chesterton

If a fellow isn't thankful for what he's got, he isn't likely to be thankful for what he's going to get. ~Frank A. Clark

Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving. ~W.T. Purkiser

There is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude. It is accompanied with such an inward satisfaction that the duty is sufficiently rewarded by the performance. ~Joseph Addison

Only a stomach that rarely feels hungry scorns common things. ~Horace

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. ~William Arthur Ward