My Talk in Church Today: Gratitude

I spoke today about gratitude. My daughter is sick, so I don't have time to do a full outline or summary, so the following is a condensed version:

Colossians 2:6-7 - "abounding therein with thanksgiving"

Two-edged sword - (Ammonihah = gratitude on steroids; public acknowledgment can be boastful, especially when righteousness is implied, and can hurt those who don't share the same blessings [talk on marriage and family last month as example])

Gratitude does not mean constant happiness. Life is difficult and brings trials and grief - moments that make gratitude hard. Also, biological issues like depression, bi-polar disorder, anxiety, etc. can inhibit one's ability to feel gratitude and joy. None of those things constitute sin. I pray that nothing I say will add in any way to the burdens carried by anyone here today.

Being grateful also does not mean we have to be thankful for our trials themselves. Rather, it means being thankful for what we learn from those trials. Let me give two examples of what I mean:

My mother's schizophrenia (not grateful for it but grateful for what I learned as a result of it)

Friend whose daughter died unexpectedly (He wasn't grateful she died, but he was grateful he was able to draw closer to God as a result. Nobody should ever say he should be grateful for that trial.)

I hope nobody here feels unworthy in some way if you can't thank God for a particular trial, but I also hope you can be thankful, now or in the future, for what you will learn as a result of that trial.

Three degrees of love, gratitude and service: God = telestial; friends / same (including family) = terrestrial; enemies / different (including family) = celestial

Michelle's weekly blessing list that has helped her see and recognize her blessings as they happen, rather than only in hindsight

My blessing list (Due to time constraints, only "For the Strength of the Hills" and a description of John Daniel Malan's sacrifice for his testimony.)

Definition of praise and honor in our theology being centered on doing and becoming - need to show gratitude and not just to verbalize it (although saying it is critical, too)

Plan of Happiness works for some people; Plan of Salvation works better for other people. I pray I can help everyone be grateful as a result of their interactions with me, whether pursuing happiness or receiving salvation is more powerful to them.

Invitation to count our blessings every day and then work to bless others - to show our gratitude in visible, tangible ways

Learning to Count Your Blessings in the Moments They Occur

My wife has been keeping a blessing journal on her blog for the past few years. (Mama De Hotel) Each weekend, she reflects on the week and writes about the blessings she received during that time. It’s been amazing and inspiring to see how doing that regularly actually has changed her outlook and perspective DURING the week – since she is thinking about and recognizing blessings AS they happen, not just in hindsight. She is gaining a “blessed disposition” (a "blessings orientation", if you will).

Until her experience, I’d never realized fully how counting your blessings in retrospect as a practice leads to counting your blessings as a habit, which leads to seeing your blessings in real time as an orientation / disposition.  I highly recommend my wife's path for anyone who struggles to recognize blessings as they occur.  It didn't happen overnight for her, but it is happening as she continues to endure to the end - and it has begun to change the very definition of "endure" for her.

Learning to Receive with Gratitude

Being unemployed three times in my life has beaten the pride out of me when it comes to receiving help from others.

Our oldest son served a mission because our former ward supported him fully - paying all the costs of his mission. The Bishop came to us, even though he knew we would be moving soon after my son left for the MTC, and said that multiple members had asked him if they could pay for our son's mission. Technically, our son wasn't a member of that ward for even one day after he left the MTC - but those ward members supported him, anyway.

Some time ago, a member of our Bishopric handed my wife an envelope on Sunday saying simply, "I was told to give this to you." It had a card ("Have yourself a merry little shopping spree.") and a fairly significant amount of cash in it.

The thing is, we weren't on church assistance at the time - and hadn't been for over a year, but some people knew how tight our finances were. It might have been easy in the past (before my periods of unemployment)to have my pride hurt and to argue or be offended somehow by the envelope - but life's kicked that crap out of me.
  
Now, I'm just touched and grateful for the gesture and the expression of love behind it.

Gratitude for Generosity

We just returned from our vacation trip to Ohio, where we lived for 12 years prior to moving to Missouri for my current job.  It was wonderful to see old friends (and those that aren't so old - *grin*), but I want to mention publicly my gratitude for the generosity that is so common among LDS Church members - and others. 

Whenever we have visited Ohio in the past, we have stayed with a particular family.  They have more children than we do and enough room in their house to put us up without too much strain - but they were out of town this past week, so their house was unavailable.  We didn't realize that would be the case until fairly late in the planning process, and we realized it would be impossible for us to make the trip this year if we had to stay in hotel rooms the entire time.  It simply would have been too expensive. 

So, we called the former Relief Society President of our old ward and explained our dilemma - asking if she knew of anyone who would have enough room for us (nine people, all together) to spend a couple of nights to lower our overall cost.  (We were planning on being in town for five nights total.)  She suggested three possibilities - two of whom we had considered on our own and the other whom we hadn't considered. 

There were unusual, practical reasons last week why we didn't try one of the couples we had considered, and the other couple wasn't home when we called - so we called the third couple.  We explained the situation, and these good people not only told us we could stay for a couple of nights but insisted we stay with them the entire week.  They are a retired couple, and I'm sure housing seven kids (our six plus one) and two parents wasn't something that had been on their radar - but they gladly opened their home to us and insisted we spend our entire time in Ohio using their house as our base.  Their generosity allowed us to do FAR more than we could have done otherwise, and all of us are grateful for that. 

Thank you, Brother and Sister Gardner!  

This was an obvious example of generosity, but I also want to pay tribute today to all those who do things that are not required strictly out of love for others.  In some ways, examples like ours last week are "easier" than other, less obvious, seemingly smaller things.  Many people respond in a time of obvious need, but many also respond in less obvious times - and many people help others in situations where those others don't even ask. 

In that light:

Thank you, Brother and Sister Moellmann! 

Your generosity in seeing a need and making an extraordinary offer of help will be appreciated eternally by Mama and me - and Ryan.  Your kindness went WAY beyond any expectation; it was nearly unimaginable to us when you made your offer.  It is an example we cherish - and I will reference it, I'm sure, in talks and trainings and other situations for years to come.  What makes it even more selfless is that I am positive you would be embarrassed to have it shared publicly, so, when I do describe it more fully, I will share it only as a wonderful example of dear friends. 

May God bless all the good people in this world who reach out and help others - both when asked and, even more importantly, when a need is seen and met without being asked. 

I Am Baffled, but Grateful

"If we acknowledge god when a child gets better, then we are also obliged to acknowledge god when the child dies."

That quote is true only if we assume God saves all who live and does not save all who die. Reality baffles me - specifically because it's not so black and white. I have a child who has been spared quite dramatically, but I also have family who have died quite traumatically.

I have an aunt who choked at the dinner table - in front of four of her kids - while two others were serving missions - while my uncle was a very faithful bishop. While one of the kids called 911, he tried to bless her to live until she could receive proper medical care. He opened his mouth and nothing came out. He broke contact, tried again, and nothing happened. He relaxed, cleared his mind and blessed her to die quickly and peacefully. She was dead before the paramedics arrived.

I have an uncle who died from a bee sting to the neck. He was given a conscious choice to remain dead or return to his family. He chose to return - having felt incredible peace and joy in death, but also having seen what would happen particularly to one of his sons.

My wife has an aunt who had seven children at home when she was killed in a car accident as she was turning into her driveway. She had been distracted and swerved into the path of an oncoming car. Her death caused ripple effects among her kids. Some people said, "It was her time; God must have called her home." I can't buy that, since I can't believe God caused her to be distracted so she could die that day and leave behind children whose lives were impacted so negatively.

So, I am left baffled and puzzled. He saves some; he binds the mouths of some as others die; he sits back while drunks and crack addicts and abusive parents kill others. It would be very easy to eliminate him completely from the picture and chalk it ALL up to nothing more than chance - but I can't eliminate what I have come to understand through the blessings in which I have participated and the real "saving" I have witnessed. I know he saves some, so I am left to wonder why He does not save others.

I don't see the big, full picture, and, ironically, it is the small glimpses I do get here and there that keep me from abandoning the idea that there is one - even when I have no real clue what those glimpses mean. Even though they leave me baffled, I am grateful for them.