Messages

  • I fear my gratitude is not fervent enough

    “A dreadful alarm of fire in the night on our premises; but through the unspeakable goodness of Providence, it was got under without any material damage. 

    O, how do I desire to be made thankful enough for this renewed instance of divine preservation! But alas! I feel so poor and exhausted, both in mind and body, that I fear my gratitude is not enough lively and fervent: yet a little hope revives my drooping soul that our merciful Creator, who knows the weakness of our frame, will be pleased to accept the integrity of my heart.”

  • Gratitude at the end of life

    “Our lives are in the hand of a kind Providence, to give or take away; and I desire we may be helped to be thankful for his dispensations. I wonder my days are thus prolonged; but amidst afflictions, I have cause to be thankful for many mercies. We have an unwearied enemy, who seeks to draw us aside; and if he cannot by great things, he will by little ones.”

  • How could I be sad and also be joyful?

    “After some weeks of practicing gratitude, I found that a spiritual joy was growing in my heart. Being thankful made me more fully aware of the great love and gifts God was continually giving me. How wonderful! Glorious! To know that God was so close, constant and loving. That feeling of the joy of God’s love became the bedrock of my emotions.”

  • Embarrassed by abundance

    “If it’s truly gratitude, I’m not sure if there is a dark side. [Everyone] has the opportunity to access gratitude, no matter where they are in life. […] I think gratitude pairs well with humility; it counters that smugness or arrogance you mention. I also think it’s important to recognize gratitude most importantly for those things that are not possessions: family, friends, relationships, community.”

  • Giving thanks for pain

    “Instead of waking up in the morning and thinking about what feels bad and wrong, what I am striving toward and what I don’t have yet, I’m going to focus on what feels good and right, what I am blessed to experience and humbled to witness.”

  • I am ready to be surprised

    “I believe I may say that, in a retrospect of my complaints, I have scarcely, if ever, dared to desire that things had been ordered for me other-wise than they have been. I am ready to be surprised, that so unworthy a creature has hitherto been preserved in the degree of composure which I have been permitted to experience.”

  • Joy is coming

    “Most of us have known some degree of real suffering or sorrow. Even those of us who have led a seemingly charmed life have seen the suffering of others or known the very real sorrow of a dear loved one who has lost all or nearly all, or some who live in a near constant fear of death, physical, spiritual or emotional. It is not pretty. How then is it that we could, or should be expected to be thankful?”

  • One of my most vivid experiences of worship

    “One of the most vivid experiences [of individual worship] on my part was sitting quietly for at least an hour before a picture by the Dutch painter Vermeer, and absorbing its sheer beauty… The room was crowded with people, but I was oblivious of them, as I was equally oblivious of the passage of time. As a result of this act of concentration the vision of this particular masterpiece is indelibly stamped on my mind which has forever been enriched by it. I know that my ordinary acts of seeing and observation have been sharpened by that experience. There was drawn from me an acknowledgement of the greatness of the artist and his painting and I caught, with awe, the light of his inspiration and creativeness. Further, something was given to me that I can only describe as, literally, a transcending of the normal everyday world. This quite simple secular act was for me a truly worshipful experience.”

  • The awe of the finite before the infinite

    “Worship is the response of the human spirit to the presence of the divine and eternal, to the God who first seeks us. The sense of wonder and awe of the finite before the infinite leads naturally to thanksgiving and adoration.”

  • Quakers are rich in invisible wealth

    “While I was too young to have any religion of my own, I had come to a home where religion kept its fires always burning. We had very few ‘things’, but we were rich in invisible wealth. I was not ‘christened’ in a church, but I was sprinkled from morning to night with the dew of religion. We never ate a meal which did not begin with a hush of thanksgiving; we never began a day without ‘a family gathering’ at which mother read a chapter of the Bible after which there would follow a weighty silence.”

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