Days of Profound Gratitude – Thursday, 30 June 2011 – Part VIII
After our trip to "the country," we ended the day with a visit with longtime friends who relocated to Sumter, South Carolina from Brooklyn, New York. All of us belonged to a church in Brooklyn where I served as Associate and then Assistant Pastor. We enjoyed our time in Sunday Church School, other Christian education offerings, biannual revival services and multiple social and fellowship experiences. An enduring friendship developed and continues to this day. Phone calls, exchange of text messages and emails and written correspondence inclusive of seasonal cards maintain our Christian and personal affection for each other until we are able to do so directly. Each summer, we are blessed with food for the soul in each other’s company as we catch-up with each other. This year, we were particularly thankful to visit at our friends’ home. It is a blessing to see their house, its comfortability, location adjacent to a safe cul-de-sac, and listening to a rehearsal of their daily and weekly routines.
An objective person eavesdropping on our conversation, especially a single individual, may find suspect that we married people with children are very boring types. Such a surface glimpse fails to appreciate the profound thanksgiving in our hearts as individuals, spouses and families when we reflect upon the arduous spiritual tests we passed to find joy and gratitude in life's daily simplicity. What bores one person may bring utter happiness to someone else. "One person’s trash is another person’s treasure." After a few formidable faith challenges, we obtained increasing revelations and gratitude for Almighty God's unquestionable faithfulness. In the foregoing times when we studied the Word of God together and fellowshipped at meals, we could not take our current blessings for granted. What other people may see as boredom, we relish as bountiful blessings.
Our daily routines enable us to experience the riches of character and eternal wealth that one gains when giving love freely as a husband, father, son-in-law, friend, and pastor and community activist. We shudder to think how impoverished our lives would be were it not for our families. Daily tasks of exchanging love within the covenant of marriage and the beloved community of family and friends are not burdens as genuine love bears no expense. In the words of St. Francis of Assisi, as we die to ourselves in giving unconditionally, God’s love raises us to new life. Our perennial visit with these friends reminds all of us of just how blessed we are!
As I concluded this average day, I recalled the immortal words of the Psalmist. “This is the day that the Lord hath made; I will rejoice and be glad in it.” A day which began with unfounded anxieties ends with profound thanksgiving. An average day weather-wise for a blistering, sweltering and humid day in June would unfold as an incredible day of interpersonal healing for a brother and me. The intense illumination of the sun would parallel the new insight my children would gain of their extended family and my childhood context. Equally, I would rediscover vital ancestral and familial roots. Rather than relegating them to being relics of the past, I understand their formidable contributions in shaping my character and identity. I incorporate them as assets as I develop personally and grow spiritually.
Mostly, on this typical Thursday in late June 2011, I again learn the importance of being grateful. A heart of thanksgiving is foundational to acquiring happiness, joy and liberty in life. My pilgrimage to the setting of my childhood became an experience of memory, healing and greater progress toward unconditional self-acceptance and wholeness. The day began with a torrent of emotion particularly based in fear and groundless anticipations that little had changed in my childhood setting, As my family and I left our friends’ house and headed to the interstate for the two and a half hour drive back to our hotel, I rejoiced as I considered Almighty God’s faithfulness during the thirty-one years since I left home. I remain grateful for the immeasurable blessing of my life’s journey in the interim. Physically tired but mentally alert as I drove the one hundred and sixty-five miles, I continually watched a mind movie of the day’s events. As a very broad smile remained on my face, I entitled the movie, “A Day of Profound Gratitude.” It is one I will watch many times in the future when I take it out of the secure vault of my heart of thanksgiving.
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