June is the month we celebrate graduations, Father’s Day and the beginning of the wonderful season of summer. It also signals we are passing the midmark of the year! In my mind this calls for emphasizing all the things for which we are grateful. I mean we certainly don’t have to wait until November and Thanksgiving to acknowledge our blessings. Thus, the theme for the month is “A Hymn of Grateful Praise” with this Sunday’s message being “Grace and Gratitude.”
Whether we are aware of it or not, the grace of God is constantly being bestowed upon us without any sort of requirement on our part. Training my now 5-year-old granddaughter to say “Thank you” has been an ongoing feat since she was able to speak. And I’m sure we’re not the only family drilling “please and thank you” into a young child’s vocabulary and attitude. Not that you need answer me, but how many of you were raised with saying a prayer of thanksgiving, usually called, grace, as you sat down for a meal? Where has that small, common gesture gone as I suspect most folks no longer take the time or attitude to thank God and those who prepared the meal before devouring it! I was raised with a simple prayer of grace and continue to speak it before each meal. “We thank thee Lord for daily bread, as by thy hand our souls are fed. Grant us to grow more likely to thee, today and through eternity. Amen.” If you’re looking for a short and meaningful prayer of grace to say, please use this one!
Expressing our gratitude brings our attention to the myriad of gifts Life is continually pouring out to us. And as I’ve said many times, what you focus on increases. Therefore, if you focus on your blessings and being grateful for them, your consciousness expands in that direction and more will be revealed – not a bad way to live in my opinion. So, begin today, in fact this very moment, to look around you to acknowledge gratitude in your heart and life for even the simplest of blessings.
Say with me: “Today I open my awareness to the simplest of Life’s gifts I have been given. Please and thank you roll of my tongue with heartfelt gratitude. Life is good and I am grateful. And it is so.”
—Rev. Gay Beauregard, Alpine Church of Spiritual Living