Gratitude, like forgiveness, has been such a game-changer for me that I hardly know where to start in describing how it has re-designed my life. Like forgiveness, it has been a major cornerstone to my healing, and a huge component of my happiness. And like forgiveness, I am still in process with it.

I find myself in a daily dance with its transforming powers.

One that does not come easy for me but one that changes everything when I step into it.

One of the best things that happens when I am grateful is that I become happy. When I live with thanks, I become alive with fullness and satisfaction and contentment. I enlarge the space of my heart to receive more GOOD from God, from heaven, and from others. Then, in return I give more thanks, and receive more good. And my cup of happiness runs over.

Gratitude begins a beautiful chain reaction that opens our lives to continual richness and perpetual blessing.

Unfortunately the opposite is also true when we become selfish and ungrateful. I know this from experience.

There was a time when I could not see past what I call my “gloom goggles.” When I looked through the eyes of those goggles I could only see what was NOT happening and what God was NOT doing and what I was NOT getting from life. And truth be told, there was a lot that I could see through those goggles.

My father had NOT been healed, my husband was NOT the man I had thought he was, my dreams were NOT happening, and there was NOT enough money to pay the bills, much less the massive debt that hung over us. Despite all the vitamins and miracle cures and prayers of faith prayed, my neck pain and frequent headaches had NOT gotten any better. Weight-loss and pregnancy had NOT happened soon enough. And then when the latter finally did happen, I lost the baby, and as a result, I gained even more weight.

My life was not a pretty scene through those lenses. In fact, it looked pretty bleak and miserable. Crazy thing is, the more I focused on those things, the worse it got.

Yes, I had real issues. Yes, I was in a lot of pain. And yes, I NEEDED healing. I don’t want to diminish any of those things, in my life or in someone else’s. In no way do I want to undermine the importance of seeking counsel or finding community. Of taking action or taking vitamins. There is a time to remove one’s self from toxic situations or to change one’s diet. At different times I needed all of those things.

There came a point, however, when I knew I needed an intervention of the heart, a transformation of the mind, a fresh perspective. New “goggles” if you will. Ones that could see the good, in the middle of the bad. I like to call them “gratitude goggles.”

Many of the people at Oasis wore them. These were people who had their entire lives shipwrecked on the shores of terminal illness and still found something to be thankful for. They still found a reason to smile and say “thank you.”

A man named Patrick was one of them. By the time he came there, his entire body had been ravaged by cancer and surgery and chemo and transplants. He had lost his ability to walk, his back had been permanently altered, and his eyes winced in constant pain.

Somehow, though, he had found a way to smile and to appreciate the life he still had. He seemed not to notice that he was in a wheelchair, only that someone cared enough to push him around on it. He cared not so much about the fact that he and his bride only had a few “good” years together before cancer struck, and more about the fact that he had found such a loving person as her to take care of him. Their care for each other, and their gratitude toward life was extraordinary.

It still speaks to me, seven years later.

Zig Ziglar once said:

Of all the “attitudes” we can acquire, surely the attitude of gratitude is the most important and by far the most life-changing.

And based on my own experience, I would have to agree with him.

The day I traded in my set of “gloom goggles” for ones of gratitude and praise, I began to see miracles not only in my body, but also in my circumstances. Things shifted. The impossible became possible. And I began to see the beauty of the life that I had been given. This is where forgiveness and gratitude and health all run together for me. The day that I chose to love myself, I became thankful. And in becoming thankful, I became happy. In becoming happy, I became healthy. In becoming healthy…you get the picture.

Gratitude was a major part of the chain of events that ultimately lifted me out of depression and physical depravity and into health and happiness.

How about you? Is your outlook one of fate and gloom?

Perhaps you need a miracle like I did, and it will come to you in the form of gratitude. Maybe, like me, you will find the missing piece to your health puzzle, just simply by giving thanks…for the body you were born with and the life you were given.

Trade in your “gloom goggles” for “gratitude goggles!” Be thankful. Find the good. Notice the small acts of kindness. Listen to those whispers of joy. Go ahead!

Try it. The worst that can happen is that it doesn’t work miracles, but at least you became happy.

Related articles

• Gratefulness Is Happiness (goodmorninggratitude.com)
• 4 Tips on How to keep Gratitude (vadarlenefriend.wordpress.com)
• Making Gratitude My Default Setting – Day 182 of The Pollyanna Plan (thepollyannaplan.wordpress.com)