Guest Column / Richard Etienne

Take time to be grateful for God’s shower of blessings and gifts in your life

A friend of mine was sharing the number of bumper stickers and yard signs that he had observed with one simple word … “Blessed.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a person could spend as much time and energy focused on the blessings in life rather than that next purchase, or possibly obsessing over all of the issues in life that aren’t to their liking?

In this season of Thanksgiving, I offer the following challenge for you: every time that you say the blessing prayer before meals, can you truly reflect on the words that you are saying? “Bless us O Lord …”

Bless each of us that seeks God’s will in our lives. Bless all of our family, neighbors, co-workers, friends … everyone.

But especially bless me or this group that has gathered here to share this brief moment of nourishment … “and these thy gifts …”

Everything that we are and will ever have is a gift from God. It is not only about the food on the table before us, but also an attitude of thankfulness for all that we have.

The image that recently came to me is that I live in a shower (like rain) of God’s gifts. Not all of these “drops” will hit me, but there are plenty for myself as well as for all of my loved ones … “which we are about to receive …”

This process of living in God’s shower is endless. In only a moment or an hour or just a day, there will be more of them! It is an ongoing process. God’s shower is tsunami-like.

Take just a small moment to look around you. Did you ever imagine that you would have the wonderful life that you have been given? … “from thy bounty through Christ our Lord.” God’s storehouse of gifts is endless!

In St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, we read, “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard … what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9).

If each of us is blessed enough to have food for this Thanksgiving, when we sit down to pray the blessing over the meal, let us each be more reflective of the words that we are saying and continue to cultivate an attitude of eternal thankfulness for all that we have been given. Now, do you feel blessed?
 

(Richard Etienne has a degree in theology from Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in St. Meinrad and resides in Newburgh, Ind.) †