Gratitude in Darkness

As strange as it may seem, it is often true that the worst of our moments make us the most grateful.  We race along in what we call or normal days of doing all the things we normally do without any awareness of how blessed we are to be able to do those things with no difficulty.  Or, to put it another way, the normal days when life seems to be going our way are lived with an attitude which causes us to take so much for granted.  It is not that we necessaily live with no gratitude in our life, but that we live without giving much thought to the way that blessings abound.     

When those worst moments fall upon us, everything changes.  The rapid pace of our life turns into a slow uncertain crawl as we seek to get from one moment to the next, through one problem to the next one, or from one crisis to the next crisis.  It is strange that the darkness can be so overwhelming that we cannot see any light, yet, we are able to look toward the edges of it and see the things and the people which cause a quiet "thank you" to rise up from within us.  God made us to live as grateful people, as people who know that every moment is a blessing, and as a people who lift up our hearts in gratitude and it often takes being knocked to our backside to embrace this part of who we are.     

To think back over the moments when life threw us an unexpected and unwanted twist in the road is to remember the way acts of kindness were offered to us, prayers were prayed for us, and the way God came alongside of us to tell us we were not alone even though such was exactly the way we felt.  When we are in charge, or when we live as if we are in charge, we are not likely to express much gratitude for the blessings that are coming to us.  When all those props are knocked out from under us, we do count our blessings, we acknowledge them, we hold them like treasures, and we give thanks to whoever and to God for each and every one of them.