Article April 4, 1988 Issue

Don't forget gratitude!

Elaine R. Follis

I Found myself staring at the ceiling one morning at three o'clock, feeling dissatisfied and unsettled. I just couldn't stop fretting. So I reached out in prayer to God. I asked Him to show me how to be free of self-centered worry, wounded pride, concern about the future. The answer to that prayer was not long in coming: "Don't forget gratitude."

I took the point. Lack of appreciation had characterized my perspective. And so I reasoned that I needed to be grateful for what I did have in life. I made a mental gratitude list. It took quite a long time, however, really to understand the meaning of the message that had come through prayer. It wasn't asking me simply to be grateful for human circumstances, to "put on a happy face" or focus on the bright side. It was challenging me to take a totally different perspective, to see life as radically spiritual, not comfortably material, and to be grateful for the spiritual identity that the study of Christian Science had revealed as mine.

Mrs. Eddy, author of Science and Health, writes: "If we are ungrateful for Life, Truth, and Love, and yet return thanks to God for all blessings, we are insincere and incur the sharp censure our Master pronounces on hypocrites. In such a case, the only acceptable prayer is to put the finger on the lips and remember our blessings." Science and Health, p. 3. What sort of blessings? Further along in that same chapter she writes, "Christians rejoice in secret beauty and bounty, hidden from the world, but known to God." Ibid., p. 15.

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Editorial
From awakening to demonstration—some goals of class instruction in Christian Science
April 4, 1988
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