In the garden of thought it is helpful to have many different tools. Gratitude is one of my favorite tools now, but it wasn’t always. 

My parents taught me to be polite and express my thanks, and I felt I did OK with that. Growing up in a family that practiced Christian Science, I knew that its Discoverer, Mary Baker Eddy, offered the following counsel: “Gratitude and love should abide in every heart each day of all the years” (Manual of The Mother Church, p. 60). I suspected there was more to that statement than appears on the surface, but I figured I had better things to think about and that gratitude couldn’t be that important in the grand scheme of things. Wow, was I in for a surprise!

One day when I was feeling discouraged, a friend suggested that I write a daily gratitude list. The only requirement was to keep it fresh. This wasn’t hard, as there were so many things I was grateful for. The beauty of nature had always been a source of joy to me, and there was plenty of that to be appreciated every day. I was grateful for my husband’s faithful love, my children, my church family, my friends, a job I love, my house, ample food, and so forth. Writing the list was fun, and it made me happy. 

I figured that gratitude couldn’t be that important in the grand scheme of things. Wow, was I in for a surprise!

After a while, though, I sensed that I still wasn’t quite getting the full picture, so I listened for fresh inspiration from the divine Mind, God, which is always imparting intelligent ideas to man. By listening for Mind’s ideas we are guided in a forward direction, and what I felt was the nudge to go deeper in my understanding of gratitude.

I remembered a passage from Mrs. Eddy’s main text on Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. It says, “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” (p. 3). So I began to wonder, Was I grateful for things, or was I grateful for Life, Truth, and Love—God? 

Well, I was definitely thankful for many things, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But things are temporal; they never last. You might appreciate a beautiful and fragrant rose, but a fresh-cut rose doesn’t last much longer than a week. So then what? Pick another rose? Perhaps, but what happens when the rosebush itself takes a pause or winter arrives? 

Again I felt the nudge to look deeper. I was familiar with this statement in Science and Health: “Divine Science, rising above physical theories, excludes matter, resolves things into thoughts, and replaces the objects of material sense with spiritual ideas” (p. 123). 

I tried putting that concept into practice. I took each thing I was grateful for and translated it into thought, which Christian Science teaches is the substance of all things. For example, I was grateful for my car, which is very comfortable and has served our family well through many years. But now I saw that it wasn’t the physical car I appreciated so much as the ability to get from one place to another. And my car is not just a mode of transportation; it is useful in other ways, too, such as a place to pray on the way to work or a place for conversation with my teenage daughter while going to and from her activities. I often sit in my car without going anywhere when I need a place to be alone with God and my thoughts or when I need to pray or sing out loud without disturbing my family. 

I had always been grateful for the apricot tree in my backyard, but I now had a new appreciation for the God-derived qualities it expresses—shelter, beauty, fruitfulness, growth, life, symmetry, sturdiness, etc. As my gratitude list became increasingly spiritual, my joy increased. 

Then, while I was driving home from work one day, I listened to a Sentinel Watch podcast featuring Beth Packer, a Christian Science practitioner in Australia (“If I know, you know,” August 8, 2022). In the interview, she shared her gratitude for her husband, who, every morning, brings her breakfast to her office, where she likes to study and pray before starting her day. She always thanks him, but one day she found herself thinking, “Thank you, God, for this good man.” And the next thought that came to her was, “No, Beth, that’s Me. That’s Me loving you!” 

As my gratitude list became increasingly spiritualized, my joy increased. 

And suddenly I understood. God—Life, Truth, and Love—is the source of all the things I am grateful for, however they appear in my experience. God is the cause of everything that is good in my life. What a paradigm shift! Since that day, I have found it so much easier to feel our Father-Mother God’s presence, to truly see Her everywhere and expressed in every good thing. I can’t say I never have moments of discouragement, but now I know that gratitude is a great remedy for those times. 

Science and Health asks, “Are we really grateful for the good already received?” and then advises, “Then we shall avail ourselves of the blessings we have, and thus be fitted to receive more” (p. 3). I have found that the more grateful I am, the more of God I see. And the more of God I see, the happier I am. 

Gratitude lifts us from darkness and discouragement because it opens our consciousness to the good already present in our lives and enables us to see more of it. And it is impossible to keep gratitude to ourselves; it just has to be shared. Gratitude multiplies our blessings, which multiplies our gratitude, which enables us to see more of good, God. It is an infinite cycle of good. What a powerful prayer!