Thanksgiving

Thanks:  An expression of gratitude; grateful feelings or thoughts.

Today is the Thanksgiving holiday.  I went to a meeting this morning where the chairman chose gratitude as a topic.  It is the most beloved and most reviled of all topics.  We choose it a lot because we have so much to be grateful for and we need to be reminded of this fact, for some totally unexplainable reason.  And then we groan in frustration because we're so much more comfortable talking about problems.  It is UNBELIEVABLE  that we have to be reminded to be grateful.  

I have a gratitude list that I go repeat every morning during my Quiet Time and I 've taken the time to write the list down - I'm sick enough that I have to say it and read it.  If I could afford to hire a lackey to blast this gratitude list directly into my ear holes with an amplified bullhorn it wouldn't be a waste of money.   Gratitude is not my default attitude.  Bitchiness would be more appropriate.  I can find a problem anywhere.  I have yet to be stumped.

The chairman selected a handful of passages from one of our books.  I want to share an excerpt of a letter from Bill W:  "Though I still find it difficult to accept today's pain and anxiety with any great degree of serenity . . . I can give thanks for present pain nevertheless.  I find the willingness to do this by contemplating the lessons learned from past suffering  - lessons which have led to the blessings I now enjoy.  I can remember how the agonies of alcoholism, the pain of rebellion and thwarted pride, have often led me to God's grace, and so to a new freedom."

I loved how much of the sharing revolved around how we can be grateful when we're suffering something we don't want to be suffering, which is pretty much everything.  It was pointed out to me early on that "any idiot can be grateful when he's getting what he wants."  I was so attracted to the even-tempered balance of the members when I was getting started.  I was flummoxed that people could  be grateful for difficulties.  It's harder than being grateful when I'm getting what I want but I think the payoff is spectacular.