Starting with the ‘grateful game’
Several months ago, I was facing more trouble than ever before in what seemed like every area of my life—finances, relationships, and health. Troubling issues seemed to attack me all at once. I’d been trying to pray, but I still felt as though I were falling into a hole. One day, I was talking to my sister on the phone, raging about this deluge of problems. She listened patiently and then said, “Sounds like you need to play the grateful game.” This was my sister’s attempt to snap me out of my mood.
Before I came back to Christian Science two years ago, I’d often used gratitude as a quick way to lift my mood, but never really understood its deeper significance until recently. At that moment I felt far from grateful. Still, I tried to convince myself otherwise. I looked around the room. “OK,” I thought, “I’m grateful for this soft couch I’m sitting on and the books on the shelf, and … oh yeah, for the light coming from that lamp over there.” I paused for all of five seconds, prepared to let a warm feeling of gratitude wash over me.
“Nope,” I told my sister, “It’s not working.” Her next suggestion stemmed from popular therapy. “Write down everything you’re angry about,” she suggested. “Just get it all out.”
That I could do. That was easy. I hung up the phone and started scribbling angrily and with such force that I broke the pencil tip.
I’d been back to Christian Science for about two years, and I knew that it was time to step up my efforts to better understand my inseparable connection to the divine Creator who could never withdraw from me or withhold supply, love, or vitality. Although I knew the “grateful game” could be a good starting point, I needed to dive deeper.
Gratitude is an acknowledgment of what is already present.
Nevertheless, in those moments, I filled up pages and pages with angry thoughts. I hoped I might find temporary relief in complaining about my problems. Taking the time to really express gratitude wasn’t appealing. Suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, I heard what I would describe as a gentle whisper in my ear, an angel message in the form of a question: “Are you using gratitude as a tool to get something?” I stopped my frantic writing. Oh, my gosh, I had been!
I quickly thought of something I’d read in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. On page 3, the author writes: “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.” At first glance, I thought this passage meant all I had to do was say, “I am grateful,” and the prize patrol would show up at my door. But Eddy continues on the same page: “Gratitude is much more than a verbal expression of thanks.”
I got out my Bible and Science and Health and began to pray to understand gratitude better. If gratitude isn’t a give-and-take activity, then what is it? Christian Science teaches that Father-Mother God and Her idea, man, are never separate. Thus, whatever the giver (God) has, the receiver (mankind) already has, too. Gratitude is an acknowledgment of what is already present, which is a treasure-trove of abundant good. It also came to me that gratitude can be thought of as an attribute of Soul, one of the synonyms for God. Soul has bestowed on mankind the ability to experience joy and harmony right now, because these are aspects of our spiritual identity, or true nature.
As I gained a clearer understanding of gratitude and started expressing it instead of using it, my laundry list of troublesome issues began to fade away.
My biggest thrill in this experience came with the discovery that my heavenly Father-Mother could lovingly lift me up “mid-tantrum.” Eddy has this to say in relation to anger management: “The pent-up elements of mortal mind need no terrible detonation to free them” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 356). Previously, I had always thought the only way to hear the “still small voice” was to be on my knees, so to speak, deep in prayer. But I’m grateful to report that God can also speak to us anytime, just as plainly and candidly as a friend!