Gathering Gratitude
By Eugenia Gamble
The Rev. Eugenia Gamble is Senior Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Birmingham, Alabama. She is a writer, a retreat leader and her greatest love is preaching and teaching from the Scriptures.

I am writing this reflection from a small cabin on the south shore of Nova Scotia where I am spending a month alone for study and renewal leave. Each morning and afternoon as I walk the beach, whether in sunshine, or in dense fog, I have pondered the subject of gratitude. It is not a hard subject to ponder when surrounded by the beauty of a place like this. Yet, it is also a time great trial and personal pain in my life.

My husband and I have separated after 8 years of marriage and I do not know what the future holds. As I sat down this morning to write out my reflections, I looked at the topic again and was intrigued by the dual theme of this issue. As I pondered it, I noticed that in my heart it became "gathering gratitude" almost like a description or a prescription for my day and situation. It became a Spirit whisper, "Genie, today do not try to figure it all out. Today, just gather gratitude. Gather it like a harvest from a lifetime of seeds planted. Even in the time of drought, there is harvest."

Gratitude can be a wily thing, can't it? Even though for those of us who live the Christian life from the Reformed family, it is the central affirmation of all that we believe and do. We are grateful for Love, so we live for Love. Still, in the midst of human life, in times of wonder and times of chaos, it seems to me that we often cannot seem to realize, or recognize, gratitude apart from the misery out of which it is born and with which it often remains entangled. Sometimes gratitude awakens like a small beacon in a storm, sometimes like a great wave of hope, care and trust. True gratitude pours over us, I think, only when we truly know our need.

When we know our need for love we are grateful for the love of family and friends. When we know our need for wisdom, we are grateful for the experience of others and the incomparable gift of Scripture. When we know our need to repent, we are grateful for the act of repentance itself. When we know our need for forgiveness, we are grateful for our God who has proved to do anything to draw us back into loving embrace. When we know our deep need for healing and salvation, we are grateful for our Savior.

Gratitude is born in us, planted, I would submit, deeply inside us, precisely to the extent of our need and the honesty with which we face and embrace our truth. Perhaps it is that honesty that is the key to gathering gratitude, gathering a deep well and reserve of thankfulness that will sustain us in our daily lives. I know that in this time of beauty and insecurity in my life, that I gather gratitude around me like a cloak against the mist. I do that with each new moment of openness to God, of honesty about myself, of submission to a new way and to the embrace of God's incomparable grace. Even for the process, I am grateful.

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