Merry Follows Gratitude

 

Have you ever noticed that the season when we focus on gratitude is always followed by the season when we talk about being merry?  And then there is the joy - that elusive thing we equate with this season. You see it everywhere on cards and signs and ornaments.  But where does it come from?  Or more properly, from whence does it come?  :-)

 I think it is difficult to be merry without being grateful.  When I am finding my thoughts running toward complaints rather than what I have for which to be thankful, I do not have much of a merry heart.  On the other hand, when joy is found in even the most simple of pleasures, then gratitude and merriment is the result. 

So, is joy at the beginning of the equation or at the end?  Does joy produce a grateful attitude that results in a merry heart?  Or does gratitude produce merriment which results in joy?

I propose that it is a circle.  Sometimes we are grateful out of our joy.  And sometimes, we are grateful out of shear determination to be so.  But, in the end, there is joy. 

And then there is the question of what joy really is.  Is it happiness or a sense of peace that is deeper than just being happy.  I vote for the later.  I find that I can have joy even when I don't have the merry. This is because of the One whose Spirit lives deep in my heart - even when I don't act grateful.
 Eph 3: 16-19


Wind and Honey Creations
Creative Pencils - Online Drawing Lessons

 

I've shared this poem before but its been a long time.  It is my favorite.  It is by ee cummings.  May we all be filled with as much awe of what is around us as we await the changes of the seasons.  One of the things I love the most about cummings is his freedom to write in a unique way that goes against the grain of standard rules.  He makes his point by doing so.

 

i thank You God for most this amazing

day;for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing 

breathing any--lifted from the no

of all nothing--human merely being 

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

ee cummings

 

 

Wind and Honey Creations
Creative Pencils - Online Drawing Lessons