Countdown: Day 15
On March 15, Naked Spirituality will go on sale. Here’s an excerpt for today:
The attitude of gratitude is more valuable than any insurance policy. You may lose your job, but you can still be grateful for what you have left. You may lose popularity, but you can still be grateful for what you have left. You may lose a loved one, or facet after facet of your physical health, but you can still be grateful for what you have left. And what if you lose more, and more, and more, if bad goes to worse? Perhaps at some point, all of us are reduced to despair, but my hunch is – and I hope I never need to prove this in my own life, but I may, any of us may – having lost everything, one may still be able to hold on to one’s attitude, one’s practiced habit of gratitude, of turning to God in Job-like agony and saying, For this breath, thanks. For this tear, thanks. For this memory of something I used to enjoy but now have lost, thanks. For this ability not simply to rage over what has been taken, but to celebrate what was once given, thanks. (Brian D. McLaren, Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in Twelve Simple Words. HarperOne, 2011, Chapter 7)
