The other week I was driving from an appointment in Cambridge back to my home.
Sometimes, when I’m driving along I take the opportunity to listen to a playlist that I have saved called “Jesus Jams”. This is a long and carefully curated-over-many-years playlist that I have put together. There are presently over 100 songs on the list- all songs of praise and worship, reminders of God’s presence and call. These songs center and ground me like nothing else does.
As I sang along from one song to the next I encountered a series of songs that reminded me of being a small child visiting my Texas relatives and singing along to the songs at their large church. All acapella. All four-part harmonies. One song would lead into the next.
I sang along as I drove: “I love you Lord, and I lift my hands” and “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand…”
One song after another that spoke of praising Jesus for who Jesus is in my life, for the relationship that I have to Christ.
I followed along as one song or hymn faded into the next. I found myself, on the Pike, overcome with gratitude.
The gratitude that I was feeling was a gratitude for my grandparents, half of whom died before I was born.. But, as I sang along to these hymns and songs of praise and worship I felt so connected to these grandparents who came before me. I felt gratitude for these Saints.
They were people who were in church all day Sunday and every Wednesday night. Their church and their faith and their Jesus were the rock on which their life was built. Everything else revolved around church.
I was overwhelmed with gratitude for their faith, which influenced my mom who has been a woman of great faith her whole life, which in turn influenced me to listen for my own call to be a Christian.
Have you ever had a moment like that in your life?
A moment in which you are bowled over with gratitude? That kind of gratitude that seeps into every fiber of your being such that you cry a bit and pray a prayer of thanksgiving? Maybe it’s that gratitude that brings you to your knees? Or lifts up your hands? Maybe it’s a gratitude for a Saint in your life or lineage?
This feeling of pure gratitude. That awe and wonder. It is a gift. It’s a gift that many of us don’t tap into as often as we could. And so, in this moment, I invite you to settle into this feeling of gratitude. Think of something or someone that you are grateful for in your past. For me it’s the faith of my grandparents. Maybe you’d like to think of a Saint in your life. Take a moment to breathe and feel gratitude wash over you for something or someone in the past.
Take time to pause and to breathe.
And now, I invite you to let that feeling of gratitude extend into the present. What are you grateful for in the present? For me, it’s this beautiful change of seasons that reminds me to slow down and observe God’s creation. Take a moment to breathe and feel gratitude wash over you for something in the present.
Take time to pause and to breathe.
And now, I invite you to let that feeling of gratitude extend into the future. What are you grateful for in the future? For me, I am grateful for communion, a sacrament that unites past, present, and future, something my own grandkids can partake in decades from now. And so, i’m grateful for the communion table and meal. What can you imagine being thankful for in the future? Take a moment to breathe and feel gratitude wash over you for something in the future.
Take time to pause and to breathe.
It is important to center ourselves on a regular basis in this experience of profound gratitude for that which came before us, exists now, and it still to come. This eternal thread of gratitude links us to God our creator, Christ our savior, and the Holy Spirit active and at work in all times and places.