How gratitude leads to healing

First we need to define gratitude. Would you say it means being thankful for material benefits? Some people think it means that—thankfulness for tangible things ranging from a delicious holiday dinner to good clothes, a nice car, a beautiful new boat, or a lot of money if you have it.

Christian Science takes the materialism out of gratitude; it lifts our vision to the wonders of spiritual substance and intelligence. This Science introduces us to the gratifying joys of truly Christian motives and deeds. Instead of fostering an attachment to material conditions, good or bad, it turns us to the inspired understanding of spiritual cause and effect that brings dominion over material conditions. Christian Science focuses one's attention on divine Principle, Love, and on the demonstration of God's love and provision for man. And there's no subject more interesting, satisfying, quickening, or important than that. Science wakes us up to a new concept of man as God's perfect reflection.

As understood in Christian Science, gratitude is the joyful recognition of the presence of spiritual good—yes, of the omnipresence of good. And since God, Spirit, is the infinite source of all good, gratitude begins with acknowledgment of His love and all-power, His tender care and bountiful bestowals to us of spiritual blessings.

Gratitude is essential to true worship. It includes expectancy of good, appreciation for good, trust in good, joy in good. And all these are necessary elements in the prayer that heals sickness and melts away discord. As Paul writes, "... with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." ^{Phil. 4:6 .}

Christ Jesus provided illustrations of this. He gave thanks before feeding five thousand people from five barley loaves and two fishes. ^{See John 6:10, 11 .} Before raising Lazarus he prayed: "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always." ^{John 11:41, 42 .} And again, on the eve of his trial and unprecedented victory, he gave thanks before passing the sacramental cup to the disciples at the Last Supper. ^{See Matt. 26:27 .}

Jesus' example for us is incomparable because he so fully lived what he taught. In line with this, Christian Science shows that gratitude means action. It isn't just saying but feeling and living our thanks to God. As Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "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." ^{Science and Health, p. 3 .}

So with the prayer that heals. We don't just pray with words or thoughts alone, but also with our lives—by letting the spirit of Christlikeness shape our motives and aims, our attitudes and innermost feelings.

Gratitude opens the windows of thought so that the light of Truth shines in our hearts. Should this be just a sometime thing, for holiday occasions only? Note these rousing words from the Manual of The Mother Church by Mrs. Eddy: "Gratitude and love should abide in every heart each day of all the years." ^{Man., Art. XVII, Sect. 2 .}

Seen in this light, our gratitude is something that permeates and blesses our lives in every direction. For example, it gentles and heals our relations with others because it enables us, through spiritual sense, to appreciate the good in them—to replace caustic gossip and criticism with compassionate love. Gratitude invigorates us. It inspires the prayer that heals discords. Through gratitude we "magnify the Lord" as the Bible urges. We draw closer to God—and that's what heals.

Even in valleys of loneliness or lack, fear or unresolved ordeal, we can be grateful for divine Love's omnipresence. We can rejoice in Love's healing grace. The Bible gives many compelling illustrations of God's ever-present saving power, demonstrated in some wilderness of despair or some crisis of extreme danger. A gleam of gratitude, rising from our fervent trust in infinite Love, can lead in turn to new gleams of spiritual understanding of the Life and Love that heals.

Ingratitude indicates blindness to God's presence. Mrs. Eddy links it with hate and treachery, and she writes in Unity of Good, "Such mental conditions as ingratitude, lust, malice, hate, constitute the miasma of earth." ^{Un., p. 56 .} In Science and Health the word "ingratitude" appears in six passages, and these link it with hypocrisy, greed and sensuality, persecution and betrayal—evils that motivated Jesus' would-be destroyers.

One of these passages includes the sentence "While the heart is far from divine Truth and Love, we cannot conceal the ingratitude of barren lives." ^{Science and Health, pp. 3–4 .} Ingratitude produces barren lives, and spiritual barrenness produces ingratitude. It works both ways. Such is the nature of spiritual blindness.

But God reveals Himself through the Christ Science that explains Him. In this way we come face to face with Him. Because of this our lives and hearts can overflow with gratitude. Should not our expressions of thankfulness transcend material benefits and sing praises to divine Love for Love's infinite goodness? And shouldn't we feel, and express, fervent gratitude for Christ Jesus because of all he has done for us and mankind? He is our Exemplar, our Way-shower, the Messiah who revealed the Christ! And surely our joy and thanks go continually to God for divine Science, which is the Comforter the Master promised, and for Mrs. Eddy's monumental and unselfed mission as its Discoverer and Founder.

The scope of our gratitude would be shallow and materialistic if it went no deeper than tangible objects or personal blessings. God is revealed as infinite Love! He is real, available, and understandable! The Science that bears witness to His nature is an open fount, freely available to all. Every day can be a day of gratitude, the gratitude that acknowledges God's allness and goodness and leads to healing!