Levels of Gratitude

I'm thankful. I tell myself all the time. I appreciate my life, my family, my faith, my friends. I am glad to be alive. I am blessed, I repeatedly say...blessed to the fullest. I have been given so much, I acknowledge that. Thanksgiving is that special day when I get the chance to tell myself all the louder, "I AM THANKFUL." Actually, it would probably sound more like "MY MAM FANKFUL" being that on this day, more often than not, food is in my mouth. Yep, while I am figuratively proclaiming my own gratuity toward my blessings, I get to indulge myself in those blessings like no other day of the year. Sometimes I wonder if feasting and gorging is the best way to truly experience and express gratitude for that which we are given.

My family has a long kept Thanksgiving Day tradition where, before our meal, we read the account of the first Thanksgiving. Every year I am reminded of the strife that those early settlers, the Pilgrims endured during their early years in the New World. Did you know that in their first year alone, nearly half of those that arrived on the Mayflower were wiped out by sickness? Those who did survive were rationed extremely small amounts of food (like 5 kernels of corn a day) and were constantly working to ensure the safety and survival of the group. Those Pilgrims really had something to be thankful for when at long last they had established themselves as a colony, with enough food and provision to sustain them for the next harsh, New England winter.

When I consider the Pilgrims and the deep, real gratitude that they must have experienced at that first Thanksgiving , my pathetic thankfulness seems to wither away. It's not like I ever saw starvation, or sickness, or any life threatening situation for that matter. If we in America today wanted to, most could have a Thanksgiving meal each and every day of the year. We are blessed that much. Overindulgence is a way of life for most modern Americans, and we have grown very comfortable with having things that way. Thanksgiving has become a novelty. We simply do it as a tradition, not because we are actually genuinely grateful for provision or protection, but because we're told it's the right thing to do. So we go through that day with the thought screaming in our head, "I AM THANKFUL", but is it truly felt in the heart?

I don't know about you, but I want my thankfulness to be genuine and deep. I want to recognize to the best of my ability the fact that we today are so richly blessed beyond measure, in innumerable ways. Our way of life today is something that nearly every generation before us could not have hoped to achieve. Yet it is so ironic. The only thing we lack is the ability to be greatful on such a deep level. Have any of us ever experienced this feeling of gratitude before? Will we ever? I believe that hardship must be seen before true gratitude can be felt. I'm not saying that I want to face hardships and strife just so I can experience this feeling of appreciation. I can only hope that somehow, we today in 2007 America can say "I AM THANKFUL", and not just think it, but feel it.