Wisdom Nugget: "Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received. Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling. Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse."
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Two men were walking through a field one day when they spotted an enraged bull. Instantly they darted toward the nearest fence. The storming bull followed in hot pursuit, and it was soon apparent they wouldn't make it. Terrified, the one shouted to the other, "Put up a prayer, John. We're in for it!" John answered, "I can't. I've never made a public prayer in my life." "But you must!" implored his companion. "The bull is catching up to us." "All right," panted John, "I'll say the only prayer I know, the one my father used to repeat at the table: "O Lord, for what we are about to receive, make us truly thankful."
If there is one vice most prevalent today, it is the vice of ingratitude. We receive so much, yet we complain. Our indebtedness to life is enormous and yet we rarely or at least infrequently offer thanks for our many little blessings. In fact, most people are even too ashamed to publicly offer thanks over their meals much less offer thanks over all the other blessings in our lives. From the time we set out to go to work or school in the morning, we are either grouchy about the bus driver, crabby about the traffic, fussy about the staff who didn't answer our greeting, grumpy about our bad boss or just generally pissed off with the whole world.
We are much like the little boy who was given an orange by a man. The boy's mother asked, "What do you say to the nice man?" The little boy thought and handed the orange back and said, "Peel it." Expressing thankfulness need not be confined to a day or a season; it ought to be an attitude, a daily practice, a culture. Not to do it is to become bad-tempered, irritable, edgy, snappy, sullen, touchy, peevish, petulant, sulky, ill-tempered, irascible and cantankerous. Sounds like recipe for a very ugly look. You are too good looking to look like that. So, "in every thing give thanks..."
Never hold back in showing gratitude for acts of kindness received, no matter how small, Remember the saying: "feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it" - William Arthur Ward.
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