Gratitude for All Things

Today as we give thanks (those of us in the U.S.), undoubtedly many tables will be filled with talk of all the good things that have blessed those gathered. And truly we need to be thankful for those things and not take them for granted. But after hearing a sermon at a wedding last week, I'm rethinking my sources for gratitude. The pastor was exhorting the married folks present to thank God for those things in their spouse that once attracted them and now grate on their nerves. He pointed out that the grating was more a symptom of our own need for refining in our character than that of our spouse. And so we should be grateful that God would use our mate to show our weaknesses and use their "faults" to scrape away at ours.

I plan to spend a little time this Thanksgiving, perhaps before I go to sleep tonight, to give thanks for those things that don't appear to me as "good". Because I trust that in the hands of a loving God, even those things He will work for good in me. Indeed once I include those sources of blessing, I'm sure I'll reckon that I have been overwhelming blessed.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose". Romans 8:28