Some years ago I led a team to provide basic health care and whatever practical assistance within our means to a slum in India for several weeks. Just before Christmas, we organised a ‘party’ for the community. We preached the gospel and gave away presents to the kids.
The presents were inexpensive but filled with love and prayers. I still remember to this day, the grateful looks on the children’s faces as they received them. Their smiles were priceless. These children taught me that day about gratefulness or should I say, my lack of gratefulness.
Numerous studies have shown that those who practice gratitude are happier and more resilient in the face of adversity. It can also lead to a stronger immune system and strengthen the quality of relationships! Gratitude can rewire the built-in negativity bias in our brain where in effect, ‘the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones’ (Rick Hanson, a neuroscientist). This explains why at the end of the day, we focus on the one thing that went wrong rather than the twenty things that went right!
However, as Psychologist, Dr Emmons, University of California, who has been studying gratitude for 10 years cautions, “To say we feel grateful is not to say that everything in our lives is necessarily great. It just means we are aware of our blessings”. Gratitude is about seeing things as glass half-full rather than half-empty but this is very different from the kind of positive thinking that as one blogger puts it ‘leads to spiritual and emotional bypassing’.
Rich Hanson explains, “Pain pushed away too quickly just goes ‘underground’ and returns to bite us. There’s a normal rhythm where you feel the pain, you bear it. The best ‘positive’ you may be able to register during this time is that you are surviving, it’s not killing you. But at some point…you can start letting it go; you can say, ‘I don’t need to keep thinking about this’, or maybe, ‘This hurts too much and I need to move on”. Or get help!
In other words, our gratitude needs to be grounded in authenticity not in denial. The apostle Paul didn’t say, “Give thanks for everything”, but rather to “Rejoice forevermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God” (1 Thess 5:17).
We can be grateful and have a good vent at the same time. Just make sure it is done wisely and appropriately.
To finish up, don’t just come up with a list of things you’re grateful for but why. For instance, why are you grateful for your job, your health, where you live, the significant people in your lives?
Christ in us, the hope of glory!
Mark
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