BLURTING GRATEFULNESS 🙏

I want to be happy🥳. You want same💃. Everyone just wants to be happy👯‍♂️. It is our common need. It is that common ground for class freeness regardless of race, religion, social status, tribe etc. But there seems to be a connection between happiness and gratefulness. What could that be? Let's check it out.
(I am happy here👇 with my smiles you know)

There are those who hold that when you are happy then you can be grateful. But think again because I beg to differ; is it the happy people that are grateful? Or the grateful people that are happy? My pastoral experience makes me understand that there are a number of people who have all what it takes to be happy but are not, because they either want something else or perhaps, want more of the same. Yet, there are still those who have lots of misfortune; which we ourselves would rather not have, but they are deeply happy, and they radiate happiness. Why is this so? I make bold to say that they are simply grateful.
(These kids👇 don't have the best of conditions, infant their families have been displaced due to crisis, but look at the smiles)

So it is not happiness that makes us grateful but gratefulness that makes us happy (Does it make sense?🤪). If you think its happiness that makes you grateful, think again 🤔, you will discover it’s just the opposite.

Now, one may ask, what do I really mean by gratefulness and how does it work? I appeal to your diverse experiences but I think When we experience something that is valuable to us and it is given; you haven’t bought it, you haven’t earned it, you haven’t traded for it nor worked for it, it is just given to you. When these two things come together; it has to be something valuable and a real gift. then gratefulness spontaneously rises in ones heart. And that is how gratefulness happens.
(I gifted baby Ivim 👇 a little picture Book of Saints on her birthday, check out her grateful smile)

And so, we cannot only have grateful experiences; we can actually be people who live gratefully. By not only experiencing but becoming aware that every moment is a given moment; this moment with all the opportunities it contains. And this moment is a gift; it is a given moment as it is were. Interestingly, there is a twist, the gift within this gift is the opportunity to be grateful for our happiness. As such, what we are really grateful for is the opportunity and not the thing that is given to us because we can get the thing from somewhere else. So, opportunity is the gift within every gift. For instance the opportunity to blurt is a gift 🤠😅🤓.

Therefore, we hold the master key to our happiness in our hands. Moment by moment we can be grateful for this gift.
But the question is: how can we harness this? How can we successfully live gratefully? Not just once in a while but moment by moment. I bet you, its simple: remember the childhood lesson of crossing the road? 🤔❔Stop✋🏼, Look🧐, and Go🕺🏽 . That is just all. How often do we stop ? We rush through life, we don’t stop and we miss the opportunity as such. We have to stop, we have to get quiet, and we have to build stop signs into our lives. And when you stop, the next thing is to look , open up yourself, for this wonderful richness that is given to you, Enjoy it! Enjoy it from deep within your heart so much that its radiance illumines your path and points you towards others. Let your grateful happiness cause you to want same in those around you. Sense the opportunity to sow happiness in others. And then, comes the third, Go for it. Make the next person have a cause to be grateful.

Therefore, to be happy, we need to be grateful in every given moment and perhaps use the given opportunity to its fullest for the good of all; that’s it.

And as a story teller always concludes; we will all live happilly ever after! Blurtans are greatful people and indeed they are happy.

Simon Faeren Yateghtegh
A lowly Priest from the hinterlands
Cheers!)