GRATITUDE

Gratitude is a feeling that is soon facing the music that the mammoth and the dinosaur faced! ‘There is nothing much to be grateful for considering the afflictions that rock the human species every single day’ you might say. But like Friedrich Schiller ones said “if you have never seen beauty in a moment of suffering, you have never seen beauty at all. If you have never seen joy in a beautiful face, you have never seen joy at all” the same applies with gratitude “if you have never felt gratitude in the middle of a storm, you have never experienced it”. It has been said that we are living in the last day. Okay before you click the NEXT BLOG button, hear me out. Yes I know it sounds very cliché “we are living in the end times”, so at the risk of loosing you to other blogs I will peruse this concept. In 2 Tim. 3:2, paul writes to timothy saying: "For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, UNTHANKFUL, unholy." Is this not the current situation? It is now a man-eats-man society! We all are out to get rich quickly and get to drive the cars of our dreams, live in that house you have always dreamed of, have your music played in the radio stations, wear the latest trendy clothes, basically be a –somebody in the society. All the hustles and bustles of the world are weighing us down, being grumpy and sad is slowly but surely becoming a way of life. Not to say that we should always have smiles plastered on our faces, for we all are aware of Ecclesiates 8:6. For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, though a man's misery weighs heavily upon him. I will go on a limp hear and share with you my experience. A couple of months ago, I was on the verge of giving in to life’s “fair blows”. I had graduated from university, and my good friend job was playing its favorite game ‘hard to get.’ Everything in my life was in shambles and I couldn’t seem to catch a break. Most of my friends with whom we had graduated with had something good going on for them. I was happy for them all but there was a cloud of sadness looming over my head! According to me, I should be in a job working hard to move to the next step of life! Move out from home and sow like my big brother did. All this while gratitude was slipping away and I was too busy looking for my friend job to notice. Since I have never been the sharing type *gasp* I’d mostly wind up in my room and just cry myself silly asking endless questions as to why things weren’t working out as they should be. This was my wake up call. One day during my shenanigans, I got a text from angel (mother) 1thessalonians 5:18 Give thanks in all circumstances: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. I read the text in passing and I was about to reply with an “ooh thanx angel and God bless” but just before I hit the send button the ever present voice in the head asked... ‘..Are you sure you have understood the verse?’ most of the times the voices in my head don’t ask questions. They mostly tell me to do really sane things like stand in the middle of the road and dance salsa to the music that has not yet been written or stare weirdly at the monuments in the city center or just stand and greet passers. So when this particular voice asked the question I was sure it was THE VOICE! Have I really been grateful? The answer was no! What I didn’t have was all that I was thinking of! When I got home that day, I wrote down all the things that I was grateful for. 1. the Voices in my head that keep me entertained 2. \my angel who sends me awesome texts every other day and always has my back 3. Princess for being silly little her 4. Lil Mo for being inquisitive and always ready to offer solutions to his own created hypothetical problems 5. Rev sir for the tough life lessons 6. Brother Africa for the words of wisdom and encouragement And 7. Missy for her realness and beautiful spirit! In short the little things are what we should be grateful for! Thanksgiving is an attitude of the heart, and when a person is unthankful, their heart is not right GOD BLESS