All of life is a pure gift (Henri Nouwen)

   Gratitude… goes beyond the mine and thine and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift.  In the past, I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline.  The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.

   Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice.  I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment.  It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint… The choice for gratitude rarely comes without some real effort.  But each time I make it, the next choice is a little easier, a little freer, a little less self-conscious… There is an Estonian proverb that says, Who does not thank for little will not thank for much. Acts of gratitude make one grateful because, step by step, they reveal all that is grace.

--Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son 

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