Gratitude is one with power. Mrs. Eddy says, in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 352), "We know that the real gratitude is what is proved in better lives." True gratitude is dynamic in its nature; it completes the circuit of prayer, and links itself with God. Gratitude reaches out and touches God's hand in the darkness, and the light of Truth dispels the gloom. To the habitually grateful, life is not a long, futile struggle with the seeming forces of evil; rather is it a continuous forward march, each day marked by a fuller, larger understanding of divine Love's power to loose the bonds of self-limitation. To be truly grateful is to know that good is all that really exists, or has power; that good is our only inheritance, all we can ever be really conscious of. It is comforting and healing to know that every grateful thought and every loving deed bears the stamp of immortality.
Right thinking consists of grateful acknowledgment of past and present blessings, with the joyous anticipation of more to follow. The correct knowing of God as omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience is keeping the First Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me;" also, the new commandment Jesus gave his disciples, "That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." The cold, proud heart cannot heal or be healed; but the warm, compassionate heart, which is aglow with love, expresses healing, and is healed spontaneously.
Does the way seem dark and beset with difficulties? Learn to rejoice; and the way will surely brighten, and the difficulties lessen. The Christian Scientist learns to smile through tears, knowing that "weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." Joy is the Scientist's native air. In such an atmosphere he thrives, and is at home. Clouded, loveless lives were never ordained by a loving Father; therefore, sorrow, sickness, sin, and death can never harm the child of Love's creating.
