Gratitude tends to come to thought when we have obvious things to be grateful for. At the joyous annual Thanksgiving services that take place in Churches of Christ, Scientist, around the world, gratitude is expressed for everything from the day-to-day good in our lives to the all-inclusive love of God and healings resulting from that love.

But appreciation for good is appropriate every day and isn’t simply a sweet sentiment. Heartfelt gratitude to God for the good in our lives is a multiplier of that good. As Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, puts it: “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” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 3). We might begin with gratitude for things we have, whether that’s a widow’s mite (see Mark 12:41–44) or a king’s treasure. But what is equally needed is sincere thanks for the “things of God” (I Corinthians 2:11) that are ours—which God, Spirit, never withholds from us. Recognizing the spiritual good that we always have from God, Love, opens our hearts to the expression of the divine largess “in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). That, in turn, leads to expansive experiences of both receiving and giving that which it is a blessing to have and share.

What about times when there appears little reason to feel grateful? When sickness, insufficient resources, or rocky relationships seem to form the bulk of life’s tapestry, and we see only slender, fragile threads of goodness weaving their way through our days?

Such times can seem the worst, yet become the best. Not because hard experiences are good in and of themselves, but because they turn us toward a deeper good: God’s great love for us. Whatever form the upending of hoped-for good may take in our lives, and however long it has been that way, that true and deep divine reality and its potency to heal is always at hand for us to discern and demonstrate. 

Jesus proved this when he healed so many in the midst of health and other crises through Christ, the spirit of Truth that animated him. Where hope had hit a wall, Jesus proved that God’s goodness was alive, active, and provable. He understood and demonstrated the allness and governance of God, good, even where problems appeared intractable. And while his healing of others was impelled by boundless compassion, that compassion was not based on accepting discord as the reality and sympathizing with it. His care was expressed in rejecting the existence of inharmony on the grounds of God’s unwavering goodness, and that removed the imposing error. 

Yet Jesus didn’t wait for a healing in order to feel grateful to God. In raising his friend Lazarus back to life, he very publicly thanked God ahead of the healing because he understood God’s true nature as Life and Love, in which harmony is the constant condition of our being. He also understood the unreality of any lesser identity than our continuous, concrete reflection of that Life and Love. This Christly perception, illuminating who we truly are as God’s image and likeness (see Genesis 1:26, 27), consistently overcame the apparition of a material overlay hiding the spiritual reality. 

If our own perception feels far from that higher, holy view of ourselves and others, gratitude is a key stepping stone in that direction. As Mrs. Eddy once put it, speaking not theoretically but from profound experience, “Under affliction in the very depths, stop and contemplate what you have to be grateful for” (A10572, The Mary Baker Eddy Collection, The Mary Baker Eddy Library). 

Like many, time and again I’ve found that doing this makes a difference. Pausing to contemplate things to be grateful for—especially the things of Spirit—stirs consciousness in the best way, leading to the parting of mental clouds to let in rays of Christ lighting the path to healing. 

Although gratitude might seem counterintuitive in times of darkness, finding spiritual blessings to count when they don’t at first seem obvious enables light to penetrate the seeming solidity of that darkness—which does not actually exist because God did not create it. Gladness and appreciation are native to our true, God-reflecting consciousness as the image of God, reflecting His spiritual knowing. So the willingness to embody even a spark of gratitude is a prayer that turns us away from fixating on our woes and toward spiritual understanding. And as we become more fully immersed in that Christ light, it shows us that woe or agony is not and never was true about us.

The difference this makes is illustrated in the healing of a man who had lived in the shadow of immobility for decades until Jesus passed by, full of Christly understanding, reflecting God’s light. This man, waiting futilely by a pool that promised a miracle cure, felt the power of divine Truth when Jesus said, with all the authority of his consciousness of God’s all-goodness, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” The man was freed from the futility, healed of the disability (John 5:1–9, New King James Version).

While we today won’t experience Jesus walking by, the Truth he exemplified is always at hand to open our eyes to our life in God—our real, spiritual selfhood that is never touched by the drama of the human experience. Each moment of gratitude stems from and brings us to a clearer grasp of this true identity, in which health is dependable, progress is perpetual, and we live satisfying lives of loving service.

Tony Lobl, Associate Editor