‘I’m grateful’—more than a catchphrase

The concept of gratitude has a special place in my heart. But it wasn’t always this way. I used to be a bit of a gratitude “Scrooge.”

I grew up in a big family, and all of us attended Christian Science Sunday School as well as Wednesday evening testimony meetings at church, where we’d hear accounts of healing given by those at the service. And what I learned through my formative years was that students of Christian Science love to end their testimonies with, “I’m so grateful.” Or so it seemed to me.

Because of this, I developed an aversion to using the words grateful or gratitude and came to disdain it when others said them. I thought those words were just so unoriginal! So, when I gave testimonies, I would purposely use other words that hit the approximate meaning of gratitude, such as appreciative. Obviously, I wasn’t seeing gratitude for what it truly meant, but as just a word in the dictionary. I didn’t really have an understanding of what the power of gratitude can do, and what it means to those who have experienced healing. But this all changed rather dramatically for me back in the 1980s, in my senior year of high school.

I loved playing basketball indoors during gym class, running and making shots with abandon, and giving every play my all. But despite frequent trips to the drinking fountain, I would always get terribly overheated, which resulted in headaches, a dry throat, and very shallow breathing.

One afternoon, after a particularly rousing game, these symptoms became very acute. We weren’t given much time in the locker room to get changed and ready for the next class, and I was worried that I wasn’t going to make it to class on time. I didn’t even have a moment to look for inspiration in the Bible or Science and Health, as I was accustomed to doing at home. Nor was there a phone readily available to call my parents or a Christian Science practitioner for help (since this was the 1980s, no cellphones!). So I had to fully lean on God to give me the healing thought that I immediately needed in this situation.

I’d had enough healings in Christian Science to know that God was “a very present help in trouble,” and I could trust Him in this instance, too. Then, an idea came to mind. In the Christian Science Bible Lesson that week, from the book of John, I’d read about Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead (see John 11). What struck me about the story was that Jesus gave thanks to God at the mouth of the grave before he called on Lazarus to rise. As a matter of fact, I saw that giving gratitude was how he healed Lazarus.

When someone is giving thanks to God, they are identifying God as the cause of all good, and bearing witness to His perfect, spiritual creation—a present perfection. Jesus proved that Lazarus was never truly dead, despite the evidence to the contrary, but was a spiritual idea of God, never born, never dying, eternal in his Maker’s care. He saw God’s spiritual creation, as stated in Science and Health: “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick.”

Right then and there, standing at my locker, I got the angel message, “If Jesus could raise someone from the dead through gratitude, then I should give this gratitude thing a try.” So I began to be grateful for everything I could, with all my might. I gave thanks for the ability to reflect God’s qualities on the basketball court, such as agility, grace, and accuracy. I gave thanks for God’s love, and for Him being right there with me. And I gave thanks for being created spiritually, not subject to mortal, material laws—laws which ran counter to spiritual reality, and claimed, “If Bert plays basketball indoors, he must get overheated.” Basically, I was actively bearing witness to God’s spiritual creation.

Wouldn’t you know it! The pain just simply vanished. My breathing returned to normal. The healing was so quick, and I had plenty of time to make it to the next class.

After that, I never had to fear playing basketball indoors. And not just in high school, either. I played indoor basketball every weekend for a couple of winters in the 1990s, too, with no recurrences of this issue.

But there was another side effect of this healing to tell about. As you can imagine, I never had a problem with people saying “I’m grateful” anymore. I knew the power of gratitude too well to begrudge a little repetition, because I knew how it feels to be free from the grips of material laws and how awesome it is to give witness to God’s spiritual creation.

I’d learned that people aren’t just throwing out a word that they hear others use when they sincerely utter, “I’m so grateful.” They are standing at an elevated point of thought, where they have demonstrated, in part, God’s perfect creation, seen its power, and are sharing their joy with others. Now, when I give testimonies at Wednesday evening meetings, I bet you can guess what I very naturally say. Those same words that used to make me roll my eyes. “I’m so grateful.”

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