Thankfulness

Readers,

How thankful are you for the blessings that you have been endowed with?

Are you able to even count the blessings that you have?

Have you ever stopped to think that every breath that you are able to take is a blessing that a person who has all the wealth under the sun would sacrifice it all for if they were drowning or choking to death?

Have you ever considered the blessing of being able to see? How much would you pay to get your sight back if you lost it?

How thankful are you for your ability to think, learn, grow and develop?

How thankful are you for your ability to be thankful?

Imam Zain Al abideen  (as) beautifully said that if you prostrate to God out of thankfulness for a favour, you need to know that the ability to  prostrate out of thankfulness is itself such a blessing that requires a prostration of gratitude.

Imam Ali  (as) beautifully said that if man knew how many blessings have been given to him by God, then he would not be able to come out of prostration for their whole life.

Many people mistakenly believe that focus on thankfulness means acting oblivious to your problems. It is simply not so. It is easily done to remain thankful while trying your best to improve your health, wealth, education etc.

Worse still are people who lack thankfulness because they think that the world or God owes them something. We came from a drop of bodily fluid and will end up under the ground. We have been given the opportunity to use the time we have been given, though we did nothing to earn the opportunity, to be thankful for the opportunity and do great things or resent the things that we were not given and wallow in destructive self pity.

I will end this blog entry with one final thought/question/quote on thankfulness for today:

What if you woke up today with only the things that you thanked God for yesterday?