GAME OF GRATITUDE

[Of Special Interest to Children]

ELIZABETH BICE LUERSSEN

Sandi lived in the United States and attended the Christian Science Sunday School. She and her parents lived a few blocks from church, and they enjoyed walking there together on Sunday mornings. Sometimes, on the way, they played a game in which they took turns telling all the things they were grateful for. They called this the gratitude game. Since there are so many things to be grateful for, Sandi and her parents always reached Sunday School and church before they had time to finish the game.

There were a number of reasons why the family liked the game so much. For one thing, they knew that gratitude is a way of praying, because it turns thought to God, the source of all good. They also had found that being grateful is a sure way of being joyful, for no one can be cross when he is thankful any more than a room can be dark when the light is on. And one wonderful day the family learned that gratitude can heal. Here is how it happened.

All the children who went to the school Sandi attended during the week were Christian Scientists like herself. Sandi always looked forward to seeing her playmates and to learning many interesting things. But this particular morning she did not look happy about going to school when her mother went to awaken her.

"Error is talking to me." Sandi said, "lt's saying my nose is stopped up and I don't feel good."

Her mother reminded her that error is nothing and asked how it could talk.

"It can't." said Sandi; but she didn't sound very sure.

Her mother bent to kiss her and then reached for Sandi's set of textbooks, the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. First she opened the Bible to the seventeenth chapter of Luke and began reading the story of the ten lepers whom Jesus healed. When she came to the verse which told about the one leper turning back to express gratitude. Sandi's mother said, "That's what we do whenever we play our gratitude game we turn back in our thought to God and acknowledge Him as the Giver of continuous good; and when our thought is filled with God and His goodness, is there room for anything else to talk to us?"

"No!" said Sandi; and this time she sounded as if she really meant it. Then she thought longer of the story she had just heard and asked why there was just one man who expressed thanks.

Her mother said: "This one man saw—he spiritually discerned that it was to God that he owed thanks for his healing. When we spiritually understand that man is the perfect child of God, then we shall be grateful to our Father-Mother God every day."

Then Sandi remembered that the week before, they had sung a hymn in Sunday School about being grateful, and together she and her mother began singing a verse from Hymn No. 3 in the Christian Science Hymnal:

A grateful heart a garden is,
Where there is always room
For every lovely, Godlike grace
To come to perfect bloom.

When they finished the last note Sandi's mother turned to page 3 of Science and Health and read what Mrs. Eddy, the Leader of the Christian Science movement. says about gratitude: "Are we really grateful for the good already received? Then we shall avail ourselves of the blessings we have, and thus be fitted to receive more. Gratitude is much more than a verbal expression of thanks. Action expresses more gratitude than speech.

Before her mother could read any farther Sandi sat up in bed and exclaimed that she had a good idea: that they should play the gratitude game right then.

Sandi's father, who came into the room just as she was saying this, wanted to play it too! And so they all three began playing this favorite game of theirs.

Sandi's mother started it off by saying that she was grateful that they could see the healing at once, just as the man in the Bible story did. Father added that he was grateful for Mrs. Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, which solves all our problems when correctly applied. And Sandi said that she was grateful to be living in a country where she could go to Sunday School and learn about God.

On and on went the game for many rounds. Sandi had just finished expressing gratitude for the family pet, little gray Starlight, the kitten, when she suddenly gave a glad cry and added: "And I'm grateful for my healing—for I am healed. See, the error has all gone away!

"Where has it gone?" asked Sandi's father, pretending to look all around the room.

"Nowhere," laughed Sandi, "for it never was real!"

After that the family loved their game of gratitude all the more, for they had proved for themselves that thankful thoughts are healing thoughts.

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