Gratitude: The Highest Expression of Truth

Gratitude is the highest expression of truth--the truth that we have all we seek, that everything in our lives is in Divine order. It is not easy to see sometimes. We have plans and expectations and desires and when life defies us, when things do not go our way, it is easy to descend into complaint and criticism and judgment. It is so easy to curse the darkness, to feel that life has forsaken us, that God, the universe has abandoned us, that nothing is working. When the truth is, everything is working according to a plan that is larger than our small pictures of who we are and how our life should be. When we choose gratitude, we get to really see and experience what we have. It is as if the clouds part in the sky and the sun comes and we see the beauty of what we have, where we are, and why things are the way things are. Gratitude also lifts us into a different frequency and draws to us the most beautiful people, events and experiences, and brings us to ourselves and our own lives in a new way. New perspectives pop up on the screen of our awareness because of our willingness to have gratitude. Gratitude transforms the impossible, the frustrating, and the tragic into the beautiful, the bountiful and the benevolent. Gratitude is the greatest creative use of our Divine creative energy. It is what brings peace and abundance again and again.

One of my greatest teachers in gratitude was a young man I met when I was writing an ad campaign years ago for The United Way. He had volunteered to be interviewed by me and as I crossed the floor of the big gymnasium to his wheelchair, I was struck by his warm smile and the dazzling Light in his eyes. I was nervous about interviewing him. He had a disease that contorted his face and limbs and I wasn't sure what to say or what to ask him. I felt my own fears and limitations rising in me.

As I sat down in front of him, he completely disarmed me with his joy. He seemed to sense my fear and he put me completely at ease by asking me how I was and if my day was going well. I was instantly enchanted by him. I fumbled a little with my questions and then just blurted out: What do you wish for? A girlfriend, he said. A girlfriend? Is that all? It was such an ordinary desire that it took me by surprise. You want a girlfriend?

Yeah, he said, I want a girlfriend. I have everything else.

I stared at him uncomprehendingly. How could he say he had everything else. He was so obviously challenged in my eyes by a terrible disease. But that was my perceptual challenge, my disability!

He told me he was lucky to have his condition because it forced him to appreciate the little things - like being able to flutter his eyelashes and open his eyes and see the beautiful world. He told me lots of people have everything but they didn't know it. He had everything and he knew it.

I sat there silently, almost crying. I didn't have a thimble-full of his trust or faith or gratitude or delight. His gratitude was so breathtakingly profound, so humbling that it made him absolutely irresistible. I could have spent the entire day just being in his presence, in his sweet powerful presence.

That's the truth about gratitude - it makes us absolutely irresistible - because it is a healing force of such magnitude. It heals the lie that we are lacking anything. It shifts our sight, elevates how we feel, opens our eyes to the abundance we have. It shows us how we have been blind to our own abundance and to all the opportunities to create anew.