Recently, I was talking with someone about life’s blessings. Happiness came up, and he said, “I think being grateful is part of happiness.”
That got me to thinking about a movie I watched recently titled Three Wishes, and it is about a man who is terribly unhappy in his youth because his father is supposedly killed in action in Korea. It is a magical movie; Patrick Swayze is a ghost—not the first time he played a ghost— who travels about the land giving families three wishes.
If a person doesn’t make a wish, Swayze makes a wish for them. The young boy is so unhappy, that he can’t even make a wish, so Swayze makes a wish for him.
Years later, when this man is grown, his life begins to fall apart; he loses his business and may lose his home. He is miserably unhappy, but his wife tells him, “This might be the best thing that ever happened to us.”
He doubts it, but somehow finds himself in a place where he encounters Swayze again. They talk, and Swayze says, “Don’t you ever wonder what I wished for you?”
The man says, “I always thought your wish was my father coming back home to us, which made me so happy.” And Swayze says, “No, what I wished was that you would find happiness with whatever life brought you.”
“Look around,” and there was his wife and children playing on the grass, “you have so much to be grateful for, so many reasons to be happy.”
My personal philosophy for many years was that happiness is for parties, special occasions, and vacations. It was a feeling that could not be sustained for very long. How could a person be happy all the time, especially when there was tragedy in her or his life, or when s/he looked at the world and saw so much pain? What one wanted to achieve in life, I decided, was contentment, a continuing sense of well-being or wholeness, each and every day.
When my friend said, “…being grateful is part of happiness” it touched a chord within me, and I realized that he was describing my definition of contentment. I realize now that perhaps each of us has our own words to describe our desire for wholeness in our lives.
We don’t reach that place, however, without gratitude. Someone wrote, “Happiness is recognizing and appreciating what we do have.” That is what the movie Three Wishes was all about.
My prayer for us is that we take the time each day to count our blessings, to express gratitude for the gifts God has given us. Whether it is in daily prayer, a gratitude journal, or quiet whispers throughout the day, gratitude will enrich our lives and become a vital element in our continuing sense of well-being.
God bless you and yours,
Pastor Lillie
Posted by Mark McNabb at April 5, 2007 12:39 PM