Being Thankful for My Life

For probably close to a year now, before I go to sleep I say a prayer that begins with, "Dear God, thank you for my life." It goes on from there. I should clarify that as a Catholic in my younger years, and more of a naturalist for lack of a better term to describe my spiritual self now, I feel a reverence and respect for a higher power. Sometimes I really feel that God is watching over me; the traditional God. Other times I feel that I'm in the flow of the universe and that the good thoughts I put out there affect what comes back. Lately, I've been focused on gratitude in its many forms. I found these quotes which I share below:

Melodie Beattie:

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.

Albert Schweitzer:

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person.
Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

Albert Schweitzer:

To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means to take nothing for granted, but to always seek out and value the kind that will stand behind the action. Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course. Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at you. Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude.

Eric Hoffer:

The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.

H. U. Westermayer:

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.

Henry Ward Beecher:

Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.

John F. Kennedy:

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

Leroy [Satchel] Paige:

[D]on't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines.

New York Post, October 4, 1959

Marcel Proust:

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

Margaret Cousins:

Appreciation can make a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.

William James:

The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated.