Don’t know exactly where I came across the expression, maybe I thought of it myself (unlikely, but possible). Anyway, I say it all the time, so much so that people around me have taken to saying it too. It goes like this: unexpressed gratitude is ingratitude.
Ingratitude is a big problem because what we do not honor with gratitude in our life will disappear from our life. People, blessings, opportunities, whatever, if we are ungrateful or perceived to be ungrateful things tend to disappear from our life. Don’t know exactly why that is so or how it works, but I know it does.
That’s why a day like Thanksgiving is so important. We should not allow ourselves to overlook its value or gloss over its real worth as simply a free day or family time. It should be a day that includes some honest introspection about what we have to be grateful for and just how good we are at expressing our gratitude.
Thanksgiving is a basic form of worship. In the first instance all our thanks goes to God, the giver of everything. Thanksgiving time should include worship time, honoring God. If we are diligent in doing that, it will be easier to bring gratitude to all the other areas of our living (family, work, friends, leisure) as well as the things we have and hold (gifts, talents, health, wealth), and also the environment we experience (freedom, safety, peace).
This Thanksgiving don’t just stop with the turkey: there are abundant reasons to give thanks to God and before God.
Express your gratitude.
Nicely said. We don’t often consider the impact of unexpressed gratitude. While it is well known that affirmations encourage continuance of (good) behaviors, the opposite – lack of response to a behavior can have an unintended negative impact. Thanks for raising this especially on Thanksgiving Day.
First, thank you for these thoughts and for this blog. I look forward to reading it each week and am almost always moved to comment. Please keep writing and sharing!
We frequently hear about how affirmations help shape and reinforce good behaviors, however we don’t often think about how our lack of response affects a situation. There are often times when we have good intentions of saying thank you but for whatever reason don’t get to it and that’s a shame. “Give thanks where thanks is due” is truism we would all do welll to live by. If we start by offering thanks to God then saying thanks to others flows naturally.
When I was a young girl growing up in a town in northern New Jersey, we had three Catholic Parishes in our town The church I attended was a small clapboard one and I would often stand in the rear of the church or make the journey up the narrow winding staircase to the balcony because most Sundays were packed Masses and like today at Nativity with it’s standing room only, it brought back pleasant memories of my youth.
I feel energized to be standing in a sea of people while worshipping. Amazing!
I am grateful for all the good that is taking place in our parish. It is more then inspiring..thank you!
P.S. The parish did eventually have to build a larger church.
Father White,
Every Sunday I leave the church and find myself feeling immense gratitiude for you. I get it that you are masterful at what you do and am so grateful and I then realize that God has brought you to us and I am grateful to God for using you in the capacity that you are in and I am amazed at how blessed we are to have you as our pastor.I would like to express my gratitude to you and to God for what you are doing to call people to act in a way that is honoring to our God. Thank you.