The Gift of Gratitude

I have spent these last couple of days in the basement of our house. In the basement it is comfortably cool and nice right now, in contrast to the heat outside. I am spending the days repainting a small writing desk.  This desk was last repainted many years ago, when my father painted it. I was about 8-9 years old, and my father gave it to me to become my very own--a place to do my homework as well as spend leisure time playing.  Many years have gone since then and now as I paint, I reflect and pray, feeling close to my father. I am imagining him standing there, preparing this same desk for me as a little girl.

The connection is there also to God showing me the connection, showing me the bigger picture, which started those many years ago. We are all a part of something, our life-story is interwoven with people, places, and all of God´s creation.

Now and then it can be helpful for us to reflectively pray over our life story, to ask God for eyes and hearts to see God´s traces in the life that is and have become ours.

It can be a prayer-time that show us God´s love and care for us through everything. It can be a time for asking questions that we have and, in the silence, wait for some answers. It can be a time of reconciliation, a time that wakes our gratefulness.

As a wise man said: “you sanctify everything you are grateful for”

—- Hillevi Bergvall