The Lost Art of Gratitude

 We take approximately 23,000 breaths every day, but when was the last time we thanked God for one of them? The process of inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide is a complicated respiratory task that requires physiological precision, and all around us, we are faced with miracles of the same caliber that we simply take for granted until the system fails.

 If you think about it, few of us have had more setbacks than the Pilgrims, who made seven times more graves than huts, yet they still set aside a day to give thanks. We can’t always give thanks FOR everything, but we can always give thanks IN everything. Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, and confusion into clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

 We tend to thank God for the things that take our breath away, and that's great, but maybe we should thank him for every other breath as well!