Day 57. Being Grateful

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"Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more.

If you concentrate on what you don't have,

you will never, ever have enough."

~ Oprah Winfrey

What if all the blessings, people, events, experiences for which you have not articulated any gratefulness or thanks suddenly disappeared from your life? What would you have left?

When I first heard this question it made me stop and think! What had I been taking for granted? Sometimes we just don't pay attention to all that we do have, especially if we're used to focusing on what we don't have. Sometimes we don't express gratitude because it's so natural to us, we don't think of it as a blessing, we think it's no big deal.

For instance, what about the water service we get? Where clean safe water flows from our kitchen taps every day? What about the hot water that showers over our head every morning?

Years ago, I met a woman who traveled from the Ukraine. She was visiting Canada and enjoying all the amenities of our country. She told me that she lived in an apartment back home that didn't always have the water turned on, and especially not hot water.

On one occasion she came home on a cold and rainy day; she wasn't feeling well from a bad cold, and she longed for a hot bath. She told me that she prayed to God about it, please let there be hot water, even though it was a day when it wouldn't be there. When she got to her apartment, she found not only the water turned on, but there was hot water too! It was just what she needed...talk about being thankful that day!

How often I think of that woman and her miracle story, especially when I regularly sink into my own bathtub filled with steaming sudsy water. Olga's story reminds me not to take this two-fold gift for granted, to be thankful that where I live I can get water from the tap -- hot or cold -- any day, any hour. It's a wonderful gift. I'm so grateful!

"Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns. I am thankful that thorns have roses."~ Allophones Karr

In gratitude,

Brenda

xox