Well, this will be short, but I will say that when I was younger, I took things at face value. If something didn't feel good, then I wasn't happy about it, and I had no qualms letting people know that. I think any child is like that. However, as I've gotten older, I've realized that there are underlying reasons why we go through the things we do. It's easier to be thankful to God (for me) when I can look past my own personal feelings about something. There are circumstances in my life where I have gone through things that didn't feel good and made me angry, but now I can look and see how it does me good to have those "thorns in the flesh," as Paul put it. Anyway, I know that's not terribly specific, so difficult to really get what I'm saying, but I'll just leave it at that. By the way, I'm 21, have lived many places, although currently WV by way of Ireland, and I consider myself a Christian.
Well that really is a question that should be asked frequently to measure our growth (hopefully) as people, Christians, etc. I think the biggest change in my that I've seen in the last year, has been a realization of how vital my relationship with God is. How I need a lot of help getting to the place I want to be at, and how I am very aware of my failings. It really bothers me when I don't do what I know I should and am not the person I want to be. I also think I've changed in learning to deal with responsibility..... Unfortunately, the place where I want to change the most... fear, I still have a ways to go. I'm 22, live in Alaska of all places, and I am a Christian, part of a nondenominational community. (Hah, that should get your attention)
I used to be grateful for specifics, now I am just totally grateful. I LIVE in gratitude. Knowing that everything that happens to me is for my Awakening or as the Bible says, "ALL things work together for good", so I have come to know I can be grateful in every moment. And my only TRUE prayer can only always be.....Thank You! I am a follower of Jesus Christ and I live by the Bible and the modern day revelation of Jesus Christ, "A Course in Miracles"
I was a Latter Day Saint, then I was Christian, then I was agnostic, now I don't know what I am. (Perhaps that means I'm still agnostic?) I see gratitude as something to strive for, that I don't always measure up to. At times I am grateful for everything, from my children and my house, to the month of October, to the mystery of it all...At other times, though, I feel blinded by circumstances, and cut off from my potential gratitude, without the will to seek it or even contemplate why I don't feel it. I want to be grateful, I want to appreciate, I don't want to feel stagnant and lazy about my spirituality, but sometimes I feel overcome. I hope that I will progress, and one day find the answers I seek, and that I will be grateful for the process, and not just the outcome.
I found your profile on the Colorunda blog (can't recall the proper spelling right now). What a wonderful blog you have!
I'm on the other side of sixty, was raised as a Presbyterian, but seagued through agnosticism, atheism, back to a set of spiritual approach to life that really has no label.
When I was in my thirties, I had my first big change in gratitude. I hurt my back and my parents took me in for several months while I healed. I was a Clincial Psychologist, but had taken time to travel by boat, so had no-place to go back to. They were older when they had me and I saw how their lives had changed in retirement. I saw how they unconditionally accepted me back home. I was very much aware of gratitude at that point and made it a point to stay in much deeper touch after that. I'm also grateful for that since, when they died, I knew I'd done my very best for them.
My second big change came when I got CFIDS in 1990. Other than a tricky back, I'd been pretty much able to do what I wanted all of my life. Suddenly I realized that despite being a health nut, exercising, etc. stuff happens. I was grateful for the time I had before CFIDS and grateful for those friends who stayed by me after it happened. A LOT left.
I could write a lot more, but the energy in my fingers is running out.
PROFILE: I'm a 35-year-old Filipino expat from Switzerland.
COMMENT: Ever since I became a Bible-believing Christian in December 1985, my value system/life perspective changed. I am no longer the grumbling/complaining person I used to be. Today, I am more grateful now for the life the Lord has blessed me with -- the little things as well as the big ones. Every good and perfect gift is from above, as the Bible says. And I'm grateful for that. Above all, I'm forever thankful to the Lord for the free gift of eternal life (John 3:16).
I don't think I ever thought about gratitude until I became an adult. Now I think that gratitude is a mindset, a state of being...Being grateful for what you've been given, the good and the bad.
Hmmm...I'm tentatively grateful for the most part. I am aware that I've been blessed with good fortune for the most part and that I probably don't deserve it. I say tentatively grateful because I'm still way too gun-shy not to worry about the trick behind my good fortune -- like it's just a ruse so when they pull the rug out from under my feet it will oh-so-much more amusing for the powers that be, or like there will be a terrible price to pay for all this good fortune up the road somewhere and I'll be blindsided by it any moment.
I suppose I'll always be waiting for the other shoe to drop, or looking for the strings. I don't think there's any helping that at this point in my life, but I am grateful on some level, I think. I hope.
I know I'm grateful that my kids are happy and smart and doing well and healthy, but that ends up turning into my biggest source of fear. Like if I'm too grateful or make the powers that be too aware that I derive most of my joy from that, that's the area where they'll hit me the hardest.
Which is all quite mentally ill, I suppose, but that's just the way it is.
Sorry it's been awhile since my last visit-the real world calleth. heh.
I'm grateful for your topic, as I feel it's an important one. As a 45 year old dwelling in the Heartland you can well imagine what my parents / teachers / mentors input was on the subject. Gratitude, teaching it, exemplifying it, giving it, receiving it - this stuff is woven into the fabric of life as I know it to be here. (i.e.: I got the "strving children in Bangladesh" lecture when I didn't want to eat the crust of my Swanson's-pot-pie suppers, field trips in elementry ed. were followed up with crayola thank-you notes to the interesting people who'd helped us along our way, we left EVERY home on Halloween night with the words, "Thank-you!" sweetly singing from our little lips, a recent front page snipet in the daily gazette had a lady participating in the "Pat on the Back" program, write in about the good deed someone did you and $5. goes to the good cause of your choice. The woman had bought a few too many items from a roadside produce sale, for her to comfortably carry back on her own to her vehicle. A young man stepped up and took all of the items for her - when she tried to tip him he'd refused, saying, "No, thank you, ma'am. I just like doing nice things for people." - typical Midwest behavior & response! People litterally open doors for you here...) I grew up Methodist - LOVE that church, so much good being done! I now belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - LOVE that church, so much good being done... a good share of which, no one immediately sees, because it's going on inside of me! =) Through active participation within the church I've come to realize that I can be grateful for many more things than I've ever realized before... take adversity for example - so much opportunity to learn and grow sown into it! I'm learning I can be greatful from darn near all things in my world - save perhaps, personal transgressions...even so once realized, I've learned something, and can look forward to working through the repentance process - with the bright hope of a better tomorrow. I try to look for ways to be grateful and to express my gratitude for and of others everyday. I see this as just another way to literally be opening doors for myself and for other people... My first prayer every morning is a prayer of gratitude, as well as my last prayer at night.
I knew nothing about gratitude as a child. My mother was highly suspicious and critical of everyone and life.
Yet she was not an anomaly.
I seldom heard anyone with whom I came in contact - with the exception of one grandmother - express gratitude for life, work or what they had or were able to do.
Instead I heard either silence or complaining, criticizing and "wanting more" - the fisherman's wife syndrome.
It's taken me decades to understand the necessity of gratitude and its transformative power.
Now I know that it is through affirming what we want to be true - and gratitude for what we have, what we are able to do and what we are- that we can change ourselves and our lives dramatically so we are gifts to both ourselves and the world.
I rarely feel gratitude unless it's some little sacrifice that someone makes that helps me out, like someone letting me pull out into traffic or someone holding a door open for me when my hands are full.
I don't feel grateful to God for anything because I don't believe in that kind of God - the God that is "out there" granting favors.
The closest thing to gratitude that I feel on a big scale is something closer to loving Life and being very happy to be alive and to be able to experience the enormity and beauty and love that is everywhere - both inside and out.
But I guess gratitude isn't a word that comes to mind very often.
Learning the word gratitude was part of growing I suppose. Being brought in an Islamic religion to us the word Al Hamdullah means Thank God. This was instill into our mind as we have to pay our gratitude to every simple little things in life. Also Al Hamdullah also its gratitude even something bad falls on us. It is hard to be grateful when harm falls but as part of the teaching: it is part of God will and one of the test that we have to undergo in life. As child its hard to accept all this but now I have come to terms with it all. Even if bad thing Al Hamdullah for it had in lighted me to see the whole picture and from this gratitude you gain patience and endurance.
13 Comments:
Well, this will be short, but I will say that when I was younger, I took things at face value. If something didn't feel good, then I wasn't happy about it, and I had no qualms letting people know that. I think any child is like that. However, as I've gotten older, I've realized that there are underlying reasons why we go through the things we do. It's easier to be thankful to God (for me) when I can look past my own personal feelings about something. There are circumstances in my life where I have gone through things that didn't feel good and made me angry, but now I can look and see how it does me good to have those "thorns in the flesh," as Paul put it. Anyway, I know that's not terribly specific, so difficult to really get what I'm saying, but I'll just leave it at that. By the way, I'm 21, have lived many places, although currently WV by way of Ireland, and I consider myself a Christian.
Well that really is a question that should be asked frequently to measure our growth (hopefully) as people, Christians, etc. I think the biggest change in my that I've seen in the last year, has been a realization of how vital my relationship with God is. How I need a lot of help getting to the place I want to be at, and how I am very aware of my failings. It really bothers me when I don't do what I know I should and am not the person I want to be. I also think I've changed in learning to deal with responsibility..... Unfortunately, the place where I want to change the most... fear, I still have a ways to go.
I'm 22, live in Alaska of all places, and I am a Christian, part of a nondenominational community. (Hah, that should get your attention)
I used to be grateful for specifics, now I am just totally grateful. I LIVE in gratitude. Knowing that everything that happens to me is for my Awakening or as the Bible says, "ALL things work together for good", so I have come to know I can be grateful in every moment. And my only TRUE prayer can only always be.....Thank You!
I am a follower of Jesus Christ and I live by the Bible and the modern day revelation of Jesus Christ, "A Course in Miracles"
I was a Latter Day Saint, then I was Christian, then I was agnostic, now I don't know what I am. (Perhaps that means I'm still agnostic?)
I see gratitude as something to strive for, that I don't always measure up to. At times I am grateful for everything, from my children and my house, to the month of October, to the mystery of it all...At other times, though, I feel blinded by circumstances, and cut off from my potential gratitude, without the will to seek it or even contemplate why I don't feel it. I want to be grateful, I want to appreciate, I don't want to feel stagnant and lazy about my spirituality, but sometimes I feel overcome.
I hope that I will progress, and one day find the answers I seek, and that I will be grateful for the process, and not just the outcome.
I found your profile on the Colorunda blog (can't recall the proper spelling right now). What a wonderful blog you have!
I'm on the other side of sixty, was raised as a Presbyterian, but seagued through agnosticism, atheism, back to a set of spiritual approach to life that really has no label.
When I was in my thirties, I had my first big change in gratitude. I hurt my back and my parents took me in for several months while I healed. I was a Clincial Psychologist, but had taken time to travel by boat, so had no-place to go back to. They were older when they had me and I saw how their lives had changed in retirement. I saw how they unconditionally accepted me back home. I was very much aware of gratitude at that point and made it a point to stay in much deeper touch after that. I'm also grateful for that since, when they died, I knew I'd done my very best for them.
My second big change came when I got CFIDS in 1990. Other than a tricky back, I'd been pretty much able to do what I wanted all of my life. Suddenly I realized that despite being a health nut, exercising, etc. stuff happens. I was grateful for the time I had before CFIDS and grateful for those friends who stayed by me after it happened. A LOT left.
I could write a lot more, but the energy in my fingers is running out.
I am grateful that God loves me despite myself and everything I do to alienate Him - on purpose or not.
I am grateful like Kathy everyday for a new day
PROFILE: I'm a 35-year-old Filipino expat from Switzerland.
COMMENT: Ever since I became a Bible-believing Christian in December 1985, my value system/life perspective changed. I am no longer the grumbling/complaining person I used to be. Today, I am more grateful now for the life the Lord has blessed me with -- the little things as well as the big ones. Every good and perfect gift is from above, as the Bible says. And I'm grateful for that. Above all, I'm forever thankful to the Lord for the free gift of eternal life (John 3:16).
Nice blog.
I don't think I ever thought about gratitude until I became an adult. Now I think that gratitude is a mindset, a state of being...Being grateful for what you've been given, the good and the bad.
Short and simple, but hopefully not convoluted.
Hmmm...I'm tentatively grateful for the most part. I am aware that I've been blessed with good fortune for the most part and that I probably don't deserve it. I say tentatively grateful because I'm still way too gun-shy not to worry about the trick behind my good fortune -- like it's just a ruse so when they pull the rug out from under my feet it will oh-so-much more amusing for the powers that be, or like there will be a terrible price to pay for all this good fortune up the road somewhere and I'll be blindsided by it any moment.
I suppose I'll always be waiting for the other shoe to drop, or looking for the strings. I don't think there's any helping that at this point in my life, but I am grateful on some level, I think. I hope.
I know I'm grateful that my kids are happy and smart and doing well and healthy, but that ends up turning into my biggest source of fear. Like if I'm too grateful or make the powers that be too aware that I derive most of my joy from that, that's the area where they'll hit me the hardest.
Which is all quite mentally ill, I suppose, but that's just the way it is.
Hi Paul! =)
Sorry it's been awhile since my last visit-the real world calleth. heh.
I'm grateful for your topic, as I feel it's an important one. As a 45 year old dwelling in the Heartland you can well imagine what my parents / teachers / mentors input was on the subject.
Gratitude, teaching it, exemplifying it, giving it, receiving it - this stuff is woven into the fabric of life as I know it to be here.
(i.e.: I got the "strving children in Bangladesh" lecture when I didn't want to eat the crust of my Swanson's-pot-pie suppers, field trips in elementry ed. were followed up with crayola thank-you notes to the interesting people who'd helped us along our way, we left EVERY home on Halloween night with the words, "Thank-you!" sweetly singing from our little lips, a recent front page snipet in the daily gazette had a lady participating in the "Pat on the Back" program, write in about the good deed someone did you and $5. goes to the good cause of your choice. The woman had bought a few too many items from a roadside produce sale, for her to comfortably carry back on her own to her vehicle. A young man stepped up and took all of the items for her - when she tried to tip him he'd refused, saying, "No, thank you, ma'am. I just like doing nice things for people." - typical Midwest behavior & response! People litterally open doors for you here...)
I grew up Methodist - LOVE that church, so much good being done! I now belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - LOVE that church, so much good being done... a good share of which, no one immediately sees, because it's going on inside of me! =) Through active participation within the church I've come to realize that I can be grateful for many more things than I've ever realized before... take adversity for example - so much opportunity to learn and grow sown into it! I'm learning I can be greatful from darn near all things in my world - save perhaps, personal transgressions...even so once realized, I've learned something, and can look forward to working through the repentance process - with the bright hope of a better tomorrow.
I try to look for ways to be grateful and to express my gratitude for and of others everyday.
I see this as just another way to literally be opening doors for myself and for other people...
My first prayer every morning is a prayer of gratitude, as well as my last prayer at night.
Thank you Paul! =)
I knew nothing about gratitude as a child. My mother was highly suspicious and critical of everyone and life.
Yet she was not an anomaly.
I seldom heard anyone with whom I came in contact - with the exception of one grandmother - express gratitude for life, work or what they had or were able to do.
Instead I heard either silence or complaining, criticizing and "wanting more" - the fisherman's wife syndrome.
It's taken me decades to understand the necessity of gratitude and its transformative power.
Now I know that it is through affirming what we want to be true - and gratitude for what we have, what we are able to do and what we are- that we can change ourselves and our lives dramatically so we are gifts to both ourselves and the world.
Clyo
Prayerforce.Org
I rarely feel gratitude unless it's some little sacrifice that someone makes that helps me out, like someone letting me pull out into traffic or someone holding a door open for me when my hands are full.
I don't feel grateful to God for anything because I don't believe in that kind of God - the God that is "out there" granting favors.
The closest thing to gratitude that I feel on a big scale is something closer to loving Life and being very happy to be alive and to be able to experience the enormity and beauty and love that is everywhere - both inside and out.
But I guess gratitude isn't a word that comes to mind very often.
Learning the word gratitude was part of growing I suppose. Being brought in an Islamic religion to us the word Al Hamdullah means Thank God. This was instill into our mind as we have to pay our gratitude to every simple little things in life. Also Al Hamdullah also its gratitude even something bad falls on us. It is hard to be grateful when harm falls but as part of the teaching: it is part of God will and one of the test that we have to undergo in life. As child its hard to accept all this but now I have come to terms with it all. Even if bad thing Al Hamdullah for it had in lighted me to see the whole picture and from this gratitude you gain patience and endurance.
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