The Importance of Gratitude

As I walk through this portal of sickness, I'm struck by the importance of gratitude.

You know that classic feeling, that you’ll appreciate clear sinuses and the lack of headache on a daily basis— the mundane normalcy that we forget to count as a blessing on the regular. It’s like that. I’ll never discount a settled stomach and an existing appetite again… right?

Until things get back to normal and we go unconscious again. Maybe that’s the power of the initiation that is ill-ness and dis-ease. It is the contrast that wakes us up to the light in our lives.

Gratitude doesn’t erase suffering— of course not. The immense privilege that is a warm home on this cold December night is not lost on me. And that’s exactly why we need gratitude! It is the compass that directs us back to the true north in our lives: goodness. There is goodness to be found in all. There is light to be found in darkness. Always.

xoxo,

e. e. stone