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| a painting by Eva-Maria |
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| enjoying the abundance of a blooming cactus ..... |
an image by E-M
Gratitude
that initiates good
Generally, gratitude is
expressed for blessings received, for deliverance from difficulties, and for
tasks successfully completed. There is another dimension, however, to
gratitude, an aspect that initiates a joyful, constructive, helpful attitude
and that leads to healing. It is not dependent on personalities, possessions,
or one's position.
This kind of gratitude helps you and
me to feel vibrantly alive, to experience a heart full of genuine affection for
our fellowman, and lifts us to a higher sphere of thought. It floods our being
with love, and we travel on a pathway of happiness, fulfillment, and
satisfaction. Such gratitude has a spiritual basis. It's
gratitude for the very reality of existence. It expresses a pure love for God
and His boundless goodness, and for the goodness of all that He has created.
Feeling grateful in this way is
natural because man is God's image and likeness, reflecting God's
self-containment and completeness. Man bears witness to God's satisfaction with
His own work.
Gratitude reveals one of the noblest
aspects of our being—for to be grateful is to love. When we love divine Love,
and Love's manifestation, we are actually living gratitude and showing that we
put God, good, first in our lives. Gratitude always puts the emphasis, or
spotlight, on God. A spiritually appreciative heart spontaneously responds to
everlasting Love's healing presence and power. True gratitude inspires
communion with Love and deepens our awareness of its influence in our lives.
But how about someone who feels
deeply troubled, experiencing lack, sickness, grief, or a feeling of emptiness,
and who sees life as devoid of beauty and meaning? He or she might say: "I
don't feel a bit of love. I haven't really anything to love or to be grateful
for." At such times gratitude in its purest sense is most needed and very
practical—it opens the gates to spiritual freedom and healing. Gratefully
recognizing divine Love as the only power and influence in our life in the midst
of great difficulties helps to move thought away from the carnal mind's
mesmeric and morbid preoccupation with evil. Such gratitude draws us closer to
God, good. And who doesn't want to be closely associated with good, with peace
and an all-around sense of well-being? To become conscious of Love through
humble prayer, to see Love as the only source of constructive solutions, in
itself cultivates gratitude and thereby removes the hardness and rigidness of
human attitudes, and we grow rich in good. Then we recognize Love's truth not
as impractical theory but as a nurturing, healing reality.
When we find ourselves grateful to
divine Love for helping each one of us to grow in grace and for impelling us to
love and to give more of ourselves, we are in fact praying. Such prayer
comforts and spiritually satisfies. And we discover that divine Love is ever
ready and equal to the greatest need; that Love never holds back good at any
time. This awareness makes our heart overflow with a sweet assurance that
divine Spirit knows us to be completely spiritual and satisfied. As we let a
song of praise be our constant inner companion, we'll discover that genuine
gratitude precedes our witnessing of the good that God bestows.
In the Bible we read that Paul and
Silas were cast unjustly into prison, and the jailer "made their feet fast
in the stocks." 1 Their
prospect of coming out of this dark confinement was bleak. But the Scriptures
record that "at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God:
and the prisoners heard them." Midnight is the darkest hour. In their
darkest hour Paul and Silas didn't fear or panic, but they praised God. And
their reward was great. We read, "And suddenly there was a great
earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately
all the doors were opened, and everyone's bands were loosed." Gratitude
lifts people above evil's uncertainty, and liberates. When we sing praise out
of appreciation for the absolute truth of God's supreme goodness and man's
unity with Him, thus glorifying God, we'll see the victory over evil. It's a
foregone conclusion.
Before he raised Lazarus from the
dead, Christ Jesus prayed: "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
And I knew that thou hearest me always." 2 Jesus
always turned to God first, and consistently acknowledged His presence, power,
and governing law. He certainly knew God as the only Giver. Through the
marvelous demonstration of his undivided love for his heavenly Father, Jesus
showed, irrespective of circumstances, that gratitude in the highest sense is worship—loving
and adoring God.
In the healing practice of Christian
Science, gratitude is a key in finding freedom from the belief in sickness and
sin. Prayer in this Science expresses thanks for all the good divine Love has
already bestowed, and continues to bestow, on man. Starting with God and
thanking Him with all our heart for making each one of us so very capable of
loving and knowing Him—of loving and knowing Life, Truth, and Love—and of
seeing His perfect man, opens the door to healing. Then the hoped for blessings
appear in our lives. Mary Baker Eddy reminds us in the Christian Science
textbook, Science and Health: "In divine Science, where prayers are
mental, all may avail themselves of God as 'a very present help in trouble.'
Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals. It is the open
fount which cries, 'Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.'"
3 To
approach our work with gratitude to God has a bonus—an expectancy of more and
more good to come.
Gratitude is a mighty healing
influence. Many years ago I saw in my own family how the power of gratitude
brought a beautiful healing. My father was not a student of Christian Science,
but he was a man of great curiosity. He lived far away in another country. On
some of our visits I would speak to him of my love for Christian Science and
its healing practice. And he would always listen.
He was in the habit of writing long
letters, sharing all the interesting activities he was involved in. One day I
received a short letter from my dad. His normally energetic handwriting
appeared distorted. He said that something had happened and he was taken to a
hospital and put into an emergency ward. The doctors had told him that his life
was in danger and that they needed to operate on him—to amputate a leg. This
was unacceptable to my father, especially since one of his loved pastimes was
hiking. He was being monitored at the hospital but was taking no medication.
After I read his letter my first
thought was, "He is reaching out to Christian Science for healing, and
Christian Science, the law of God, will heal him!" A wonderful sense of
gratitude welled up in me. I opened Science and Health and read from the
Glossary the metaphysical interpretation of Father. It reads,
"Eternal Life; the one Mind; the divine Principle, commonly called
God." 4 "Yes,"
I thought, "God is my dad's Life, and Life is ever present, and undeniably
whole and complete." And I knew there was only one possible course of
action for all involved—to live as the reflection of ever-present Life.
Gratitude for Christian Science
animated my being. Everything I needed to know—especially the healing solution
in regard to this situation—I found in the Bible and its key, Science
and Health. These two books showed me how God perceives man—as His perfect
likeness. And they made it clear that the mortal, carnal mind with its evil is
not a creation of divine Love; that it has no support from divine law and is
therefore totally incapable of controlling man.
Praying along those lines, my prayer
was one of gratitude. I wrote my father a letter sharing these ideas, and I
sent it on its way. But before the letter reached its destination I received
another letter. It was obvious (by the strong handwriting) that my father was
again his normal self. He wrote that the doctors, after another examination,
decided that the operation was no longer necessary. An earlier diagnosis
showing some evidence of diabetes was also refuted. He was assured that he
could live a normal, active life. (We later compared notes and discovered that
the doctors gave him that second checkup shortly after prayer in Christian
Science had begun.)
Soon my father returned home from the
hospital and found my letter waiting for him. And he began to read Science
and Health. When I saw him a few months later, he acknowledged with tears
of gratitude that Christian Science had healed him.
A grateful heart, wide open to the
healing message of the Bible and Science and Health, communes with
divine Love. Love is ever so ready to guide and shepherd each of us. The consistent
contemplation of God's allness and of man's pure, perfect being impels us to be
grateful to God, and this initiates healing.
1 See Acts 16:22-26.↑
--Eva-Maria Hogrefe
From the November 1996
issue of The Christian Science Journal
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| all pictures are taken by E-M |
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| except this beautiful photo taken by one of my German friends, Gisbert Rentmeister (it is of his garden) |
A grateful
heart a garden is,
Where there
is always room
For every
lovely, God-like grace
To come to
perfect bloom.
A grateful
heart a fortress is,
A staunch
and rugged tower,
Where God’s
omnipotence, revealed,
Girds man
with mighty power.
A grateful
heart a temple is,
A shrine so
pure and white,
Where
angels of his presence keep
Calm watch
day or night.
Grant then,
dear Father-Mother, God,
Whatever
else befall,
This
largess of a grateful heart
That loves
and blesses all.
--Ethel
Wasgatt Dennis
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| a scetch by E-M |
Gratitude is a
mover…
-----------------------
because you cannot stand still with gratitude, it moves you forward on your
path and teaches you the power of LOVE in your life – it is a divine force, a
power, and brings adjustments wherever adjustments are needed.
A grateful heart
is like a fertile soil, indicative of activity, and not stagnation; of
fruitfulness, not barrenness; of newness and freshness; not tiredness and
staleness. As a matter of fact,
fruitlessness, stagnation, and barrenness, are associated with ingratitude and
make up a futile soil.
--Eva-Maria
Have a blessed Thanks-giving
Eva-Maria
Hi Eva-Maria.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your postings on gratitude! I have been working with some of these ideas since the last time we spoke and I regularly reread the email you sent me about handling a sense of lack with gratitude and it has been very helpful! I still am struggling with a seeming lack of money and just as you mentioned in this post, I find myself wondering how I can be grateful to God for supplying my needs when I can't pay my rent or bills or buy groceries; I am always grateful for so many other things that I do have and that is what I concentrate on and my needs are usually met in other ways like through friends, neighbors and family. But now, I am seeing that the way I can be grateful during these times of seeming lack, is by simply being grateful that God, Love is the ONLY power in my life and that will naturally bring me closer to God and peace and will keep thoughts of lack and fear from coming into my consciousness.
Thanks for all of your great thoughts! And your pictures and paintings are wonderful and very inspiring :) You're so talented!
xoxo Kelly
Hi Kelly --
ReplyDeleteDear of you to let me know, and that includes here in a public forum, letting others see and know how we can find ways by recognizing unlimited possibilities within, and thus seeing our needs to be supplied without -- and often in wonderful and surprising ways! Supply is with us always, however, what we too frequently overlook is that it's presence is simple and unpretentious ... the law that governs supply is Supply itself. For me GOD/LOVE is Supply! When we are plenty aware of this powerful spiritual fact, our needs will be met.
With much love,
Eva-Maria