The Power of Gratitude
Ever since I was a child, I have been well cared for by my loving family. I have never known a world, where I didn’t get what I want. I was spoiled in a lot of ways even though I grew up in an average household. Being human, I have grown up taking many of my blessings for granted. I was a depressed child, who thought the only way to become happy was to have the best status, technology, grades, and style, but I always ended up feeling like I needed more. Only after I became part of the Xenos Christian Fellowship, did I begin to realize just how fortunate I was! I learned real gratitude for the first time in my life, when I received Jesus Christ as my personal savior. Gratitude is the highest principle I hold in my life.
God’s gift of grace through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross is the one truth I can return to in any situation I am in. It takes me only a few seconds of meditating to realize how blessed I am! I have a relationship with Jesus Christ! He willingly died for me, a prideful, self-centered, distrusting, spoiled kid, and he granted me the chance to spend eternity in heaven! God’s gift of grace is the greatest blessing any person could ever receive because it’s a gift that lasts beyond time itself. I am eternally grateful to Jesus Christ because he was willing to die for a messed up guy like me.
Gratitude is such an essential part of my life because it opens my eyes to all the blessings I have. If I’m not grateful, I fall into a pit of muck filled with my own decieving thoughts and feelings. I take advantage of others, forget my significance in Christ, and eventually am overcome with feelings of anguish and despair. It hardens my heart to those around me, and I am unable to relate with others. Sometimes, my feelings of bitterness and despair run so deep that I can’t do school work, can’t sleep well, or even think straight. The power of ingratitude is great, but the power of gratitude has the ability to move mountains!
With gratitude, I am able to relate to others. I am learning how to make sacrifices for the sakes of others. I am able to experience feelings of joy and fulfillment, and I am significant in others’ lives! I have friends and family who share the same gratitude for Christ, and they are the most significant people in my life. I have people who actually care for my feelings and me. I even relate with people who I used to consider enemies! With gratitude, I am able to see and appreciate God’s amazing truth of grace and love.
Gratitude is the greatest principle that I abide by because it is the foundation for every goal I set, for recognizing every blessing I have, and for learning to accept my sinful nature each step of the way. It is the difference between being overjoyed and being utterly miserable. It is the difference between life and death. Through God’s grace and being grateful for his gift, I am the person I am today, an average teenager whose life has been changed forever.
The End…
This paper really helped clear out my head… the lord works in such mysterious ways… He brightened my day by having me read what I was writing! I am crying because the Lord has done so much for me in my life, I am a sinful dope, yet he’s given me all of you guys, I’m so overjoyed that the Lord led me to you guys. I can’t wait to learn to be able to share this joy with the lost and help them receive Christ. It’s such an amazing thing, God’s grace!! I hope this paper affects some of those dude’s hearts when we go over it to peer edit it tomorrow… im praying that the lord can use the gifts he’s given me to really affect some of these dudes! I’m sure this will make some hostile but when was that ever a bad thing? I hope you guys enjoy the read. It is a rough draft so it will most likely need tune ups here and there. I know that this paper had a big affect on me. Still drives me wild how the lord can actually get me to write something that affects me so deeply… but only after I write it down! Hopefully I’ll get the lord’s clue sooner and start diving more in writing and reading his word to explore grace and love furthur…
I hope you guys like the song because it is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard… Thanks be to Kyle for showing me this amazing band!
