Thankfulness, Joy and Gratitude Abounding

“Gratitude is born in hearts that take time to count up past mercies.”

~Charles Jefferson

The memory is a tool of divine penance for the engagement of praise and thanksgiving to an ever-worthy God for the gift of life and all that has been reckoned toward us.

Our memories help us in not forgetting what is already known—the strength and power of one’s testimony before God and humankind in recollection within the self.

Remembrance is the divine quality that is gifted all, though most, most of the time, don’t avail themselves to it. We forget too often what we already know, and because we already know it, but don’t make the effort to reconcile these memories, we miss the blessing that was destined for us—a divine linkage.

The Divine Linkage – Thankfulness And Joy

It is no coincidence that those paying the toll of thankfulness, recalling the greatness and grace in the mercies bestowed upon them, have also a visceral portion of joy about them. Thankfulness is an investment; joy is the blessing redeemed.

Thankfulness is the effort of stretching our minds backward; exercising our mental and emotional muscle in the effort to reveal what should not be forgotten but often is.

It is an investment of faith because we could spend our time doing other things; implementing pleasure, working hard on something else, or resting our minds from the ardour of a more compelling spirituality. Effort in the right direction is always commendable, even when the direction appears the wrong way (focusing backwards into the past, not forward into the future).

And with faith to project ourselves from the present into the past, honouring our memories, stimulating praise for them, venturing beyond the curses to what God intended in them for us, we then find a strange peace we connote as joy.

Joy Prospers The Heart To Gratitude

If we were to end in the position of joy we might have missed the point.

From thankfulness we were presented a wreath of joy; the commemoration of legacy.

Now at joy we travel onward, not satisfied selfishly in being blessed to the end of our soul’s pleasure, and we find ourselves home to an innate paradigm of gratitude. Seasons punctuated by such gratitude make for the awe of the Lord. Unparalleled is our sense of the Presence of God. Blessed do we now feel.

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When we refuse to forget what we already know, the goodness given to us freely and abundantly, there springs thankfulness unto joy, then further onto gratitude that wells up from within.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.