Reflections on Gratitude

By Pastor Tracey Leslie
​I grew up in a preacher’s family.  My dad always said grace at the table.  He had one line persistent in all of his prayers; he always gave thanks to God for the blessings of home, health and happiness.  Those words were especially celebratory when the extended family – grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins – joined us for holidays.  The year that my dad retired, my mom was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.  After my mom’s death, I do not ever recall hearing my father pray that trilogy of thanksgiving again.  I missed that prayer and longed for it but certainly understand how hard it was for him.

​My husband (a professor) and I do not have children and are often not with our extended family for the holidays.  As a result of our ministry, we have moved many times over the years.  But this year I decided to redeem those prayerful words of my dad (now deceased) by writing my own prayer of Thanksgiving and redefining those themes of home, health and happiness:

 Thank you, O God, for the blessing of home, health and happiness…
 For the blessing of home even though the house and structure change. 
We discover the blessing in it as we nestle in.  It becomes what we name it as we live it: dinners with friends, evenings snuggling around the TV, the rituals of cleaning, the familiar rockers and tables from our homes of childhood. 
We make it home as we meditate in the morning and pray in the dark of night; as we study scripture and reflect; as we birth sermons and lesson plans; as we structure our days in service to God and others.
Thank you for the blessing of home, O God.
 
Thank you, O God, for the blessing of home, health and happiness…
For the blessing of health even though we age and our bodies decay.
Medications sit in cupboards, heating pads and cold packs, Nsaids, treadmill and weights: all to delay the inevitable march toward old age.
Yet we give thanks for your good gifts and the wisdom to use them: for nutritious food and recuperative sleep, for meditation to calm anxious minds and restless souls; for hydration, exercise to strengthen muscle and bone.
We cannot halt the hands of time for onward they march. 
And yet we will thank you for the gift of life and the blessing of health.
 
Thank you, O God, for the blessing of home, health and happiness…
For the blessing of happiness in times of joy and sorrow, struggle and ease.
Happiness is ours to choose when we are mindful that you are with us on this journey,
gently guiding and directing, wooing and enticing us to follow day by day, even hour by hour.
You bid us look beyond the tasks at hand to a happiness that goes deeper and wider.
It is not our striving, but your gifts when our eyes and ears and hands are open to receive them:
Thank you, God, for the blessing of happiness.

As you are three, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I give thanks for these three:  home, health and happiness.

This Week....

To cultivate the gift of Gratitude, consider engaging in one or more of the following practices:

• End every day by thanking God for at least one thing before you go to sleep.  Tell God what that blessing meant to you.
• Write a letter, send an email, or make a phone call to someone who has been a blessing to you; let them know how much they mean to you.
• Notice how often you make comparisons that result in feelings of dissatisfaction or entitlement.  This week, each time you find yourself making a comparative statement (out loud or to yourself), instead give thanks for an opportunity, experience or relationship you have.​