Gratitude
Journeys Community Nov. 18, 2010
Paul Shoffeitt
When I was growing up we lived in Atlanta. The church my family attended had a program one year encouraging all the members to read the entire Bible over the course of a year. My mom and dad decided that we would do this as a family. At the end of the year the Atlanta Constitution published a story about the program and carried a picture of the youngest and the oldest participant. I was the youngest.
While I’m sure I slept through a great deal of the family reading sessions, I can remember either waking up or coming to attention when one night my father read the passage from one of the epistles which reads, “In all things give thanks.”
I remember thinking, whoa, wait a minute, did I hear that right, in all things?
If it had read, “In all things happy and successful give thanks” it wouldn’t have hit me like it did. But to give thanks for things not so good, things sad and disappointing in a major way, to give thanks for such things and times, I thought, come on, really!
