“This is what I would like to feel more than anything. Gratitude. How else can you really enjoy your life? To feel gratitude is to look at everything in your life and appreciate it, be aware of it, pay attention to it. Our lifestyle, of course, engenders discontent and resentment. Because more is always better, you can never be satisfied with what you have. Because commercials are constantly showing us ecstatically happy people with lots of stuff, we always feel that we’re just not quite making it. Then, when we see how much money rich people have, we feel envious. All of these feelings make you discontent with your life, causing you to fail to be grateful for what you have. So each morning I consciously think about what I am grateful for…”
Cecile Andrews in “The Spirituality of Everyday Life” in Simpler Living, Compassionate Life: A Christian Perspective ed. Michael Schut (Harrisburg: Morehouse, 2008), p. 40.
Society tells us that “more is always better” and in our lives we have found that breeds discontentment. Such thinking led us to purchase perhaps a larger house than we need, so we are putting our house on the market today. While we pray it sells we are grateful that we have gotten to live in this wonderful Eagle View community. We’ve experienced the joy of leading a neighbor to Christ and built deep bonds with many others here.
We have no idea where we are moving, but worrying about that is borrowing trouble. As Jesus reminds us, each day has enough challenges of its own. For now, we are grateful that our family of four is unified that living simply with an attitude of gratitude is the path we want to walk together. And many of you who read these meditations are walking that path too. May gratitude and contentment lead you to enjoy greater levels of freedom and generosity.
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