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Lent Photo-A-Day (February 10 – March 27, 2016)

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Day 5 — Gratitude

So here’s the deal. I think gratitude has gotten a bad wrap etymologically. The dictionary claims that gratitude is a noun. But I see gratitude as an action verb.

Think of it like receiving a present. The “transaction” isn’t really complete until you say “Thank You” to the giver. For me, being grateful is never truly felt until you can express it by paying it forward to someone else.

I am constantly grateful for the many blessings in my life (like my washer and dryer!), but once I recognize that feeling of gratitude, what do I DO with it? Just collect it and save it for a rainy day when I’m feeling down? That works for some people, but not for me. I feel that being grateful should change something inside me, in my heart, my life that can be manifest in the world around me.

In scripture Jesus was constantly running into folks who went away grateful. For example, ONE of the ten lepers he healed and the Samaritan women at the well who thought she was giving HIM a drink of water. And what did they do with their gratitude? The leper went and told a priest he’d been healed. The Samaritan woman went and told her village she’d met someone who told her everything she’d done in her life.

For me, I need to do the same thing. I need to act in faith and go on to become who or what someone ELSE can be grateful for.

gratitude

This is Lily Kostopoulos, daughter of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins hockey team captain Tom Kostopoulos, helping to fill bags of food to be distributed to those in need for Thanksgiving at a distribution center in Wilkes-Barre Township, Pennsylvania (2015). This, to me, is what gratitude looks like.

Have you been grateful enough to show YOUR gratitude lately?

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As we express our gratitude, we must never forget
that the highest appreciation is not to utter words,
but to live by them.
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John F. Kennedy

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Picture Credit: www.washingtontimes.com