“I wish I had no arms”

 

We’ve all heard it from our mothers: “Say please and thank you”; but little did we know how important that actually is. Gratitude is one of the great keys to happy living; and after all, isn’t that what we’re all looking for? 

During a particularly dark time in my life I was asked to write in my journal one thing I was grateful for each day. I did that for a year and a half, and from day one my outlook started to change. It was as though a dark sheet of bitterness, resentment, misunderstanding, and cynicism was between me and the sun, and with each entry I was poking a small pinhole in that sheet and letting the light in. 

Eventually I began to see things in a more perfect light. I started to appreciate things I had been neglecting to notice previously. Life began to be a blessing once more, rather than a burden; and that’s not to say all my trials went away – they didn’t; but it helped me to face them with greater hope and faith. They say a little sugar helps the medicine go down. Even so, it’s easier to take the hard things life serves us when we can simultaneously appreciate the sweetness of the good things that life also brings.  

   

 We can even learn to be grateful for our trials – or at least be grateful for the opportunity we have to learn and grow from them. I’ve never met a more perfect example of this than May. May has no arms. She has fully functional hands at her shoulders, but she was born with no arms. I could speak for ages of how accomplished and strong and independent this woman, wife, and mother is in every aspect of her life; but perhaps her greatest virtue is her ability to see the good throughout this challenge she has faced. May recently spoke to a group of children about her trials, telling them all the struggles she had faced, but more importantly how much she had learned from this difficulty. Such was her attitude toward what others might consider a crippling challenge, that when she finished speaking one of the children said, “I wish I had no arms”. 

 

How I would that we could all be grateful enough for the blessings that come of trials that when we spoke of them, others would say “I wish I had suffered what you have, so that I could be blessed with learning and growth the way you have”. 

Let us all choose to be a little more grateful today. Choose to see life with the illuminating light of appreciation, rather than the dismal darkness of ingratitude.