A grateful heart

Gearing up for Thanksgiving, my thoughts turn to the importance of gratitude.

I think gratitude is as important to meaningful and joyful living as anything.

Even knowing that, it sometimes is not easy to practice an attitude of gratitude.

This morning in church, we sang a familiar chorus..."We bring the sacrifice of praise into the house of the Lord."

When we are in a funk, or are just plain irritated or bent out of shape about something, we might not feel like being thankful.

If we are going through hard times--sickness, loss of a loved one, etc., it's hard to feel grateful too.

Choosing to offer up thanksgiving in those times, by a deliberate act of our will, well, that is a sacrifice.

The thing about sacrificing praise is that it turns us inside out in a good way.  It turns us from being preoccupied with ourselves and our often petty grievances to recognizing that we really are fortunate.

Looking up, we can usually see that we are better off than we thought, that we are not alone, that the Good Lord has blessed us beyond measure.

We are richer than we know, regardless of what our bank account might say.