Thanks--for Such "Simple" Things

One way of finding out how much we have to be thankful for, is to give up some of our blessings and see how grateful we would be to have them back. Consider for a moment just one seemingly simple thing: nourishing food⎯not fancy foods, not the trimmings, but merely simple, strength-sustaining food. We may have come to consider it as commonplace, but let it be taken from us for only a few days⎯or for only a day⎯and see how abundantly blessed we would feel to have it back. Let’s look at health⎯just ordinary, reasonably good health, just the feeling that it’s good to be alive: Let us once stop feeling like a functioning, hearty human being, and we quickly come to learn the surpassing blessing of having health. Look at such simple things as the countryside scenes⎯and eyesight to see them; as music and voices⎯and ears to hear them; as friends and family: We casually accept them. We sometimes abuse them. But once let us lose them, and we should soon see how abundantly blessed we were when we had them. Sometimes children are troublesome, and sometimes they are looked upon as being a burden; but let one of them be in danger, let one of them be seriously sick, let one of them be lost, and the surpassing blessing of having them will soon be in abject evidence. Let’s look at work: Sometimes we complain of it. But let someone take from us the right to work or let some illness prevent us from the privilege of work, and we should soon see what a blessing it would be to have our work back. Let’s look at freedom: We may have come to accept it casually⎯freedom to live where we want, to worship as we want, to work at what we want; freedom from intrusion upon the privacy of our homes, freedom to read and to think as we wish: Once let it be lost⎯as it always has been by so many men (or as it has never been known by so many men)⎯and we should soon see how unspeakably thankful we would be for freedom. If we need any added evidence of what we have to be thankful for, let there be taken from us even the least of the seemingly simple things that make life livable, and we should soon feel unbelievably blessed to have back what we may now have come to consider as commonplace.