Article November 23, 1981 Issue

An attitude of gratitude

JOHN L. SALLINGER III

Gratitude is the open door through which healing freely pours. Gratitude is the recognition of God's very presence in spite of matter-oriented testimony that may be insisting there is no possible reason for expressing thanks. The physical senses may suggest deformity or organic malfunction. But God-inspired thanksgiving includes the present acknowledgment that there is no validity to the communication of the five senses. It recognizes the absolute truth of God as Spirit, and Spirit as our God.

Because man is created in the image of Spirit, we can joyfully give God praise and glory for all the good that is eternally present. Since God fills all space—from the very definition of God as infinite, omnipresent, All—it follows that anything suggesting the absence of God or the presence of His opposite is an impossibility. Otherwise, God would be, to Himself and to His creation, a contradiction. Habakkuk describes God in these words: "Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One?" Further on he continues, "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil." ^{ Hab. 1:12, 13.}

Mortal mind—Mrs. Eddy's term for false mortal belief—still masquerades as reality. We may therefore sometimes find the door of gratitude closed tightly and ourselves enveloped in chaos and darkness, surrounded by fear, sickness, doubt, and dogma. The arguments of mortal mind take on various forms: we may feel ourselves totally separated from God and all that's good; believe our prayers to be ineffective, although filled with all the right words; even utter in a moment of desperation, "What have I done to deserve this?"

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