“If the only prayer you ever said was ‘thank you,’ that would be enough,” attributed to Meister Eckhart
Several years ago, I heard someone describe gratitude as “getting the junk out” – except he didn’t say “junk.” His point was that gratitude is about more than just being pleased with fortunate circumstances.
While it can certainly improve one’s outlook to appreciate the pleasant things in life, we all know from experience that life is filled with challenges, loss and often great pain. The question, then, is whether gratitude can be practiced in these circumstances, too.
A practice that I have used off and on over the past several years, and which I believe has slowly begun to change my habitual response to life’s ups and downs, is to write a daily gratitude list using this simple formula: “Thank you, God, for [difficult circumstance], which is teaching me “
I can use this practice on anything: a difficult relationship, an injury or physical limitation, a traffic jam, even an intractable personal shortcoming. The basic idea is that every challenge presents an opportunity, every hardship offers a chance to grow – in wisdom, in humility, in love.