By -@kaka Lucas. 9/92021

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This is the year of gratitude for me. Despite all that I am facing I still have a million things to be grateful for. This is truly a  year to be grateful. I am graduating from the University of the West Indies and just the thought of how I maneuvered through …….. I may not be able to hold back tear drops from falling on my little belly that is growing due to enough time of relaxation and stress free from writing essays.

Today’s blog is not about my graduation though. I want to tell you about some tables that I have been seating around for the last three weeks. It is not the first time I am coming here and seating round these tables among the brothers of Mustard Seed. But since last year when I started coming here to release tension fumes from my head, I have always found a sense of peace and attitude of gratitude around these tables.

In Jacob’s ladder we have two tables now. We had one but due to covid we had to bring one more to allow the spacing that we must observe. We have meals twice a day and I can tell you there is no hurry on these tables. We talk, we chat, we laugh, we joke, we share, we teach each other and if you read my other blog before this we sing around these tables (full choir practice). I find a lot of fulfillments on these tables. By the time I take my steps upstairs to my room, I am either singing, laughing, or thinking what I am going to write like now or what I should do better tomorrow. These tables are amazing. It is there that not just food is shared and enjoyed but spiritual meals are shared in honesty, and that is what just makes me feel at peace and grateful.

Breakfast & Dinner prayers

These tables have taught me to be grateful. In the morning we say a prayer to bless the meal. Breakfast prepared by the brothers lovingly (occasionally I help, but I am not a morning person in the kitchen). Then after meals we give thanks this way……

    We give you thanks almighty God for all your benefits who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen……May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen

Wow! There is God to praise and give thanks for the meal and we pray for the souls that may be looking up for our prayers. A grateful heart is not just for its own benefit but even for those in one way or another never were grateful in their lifetime.

Then what makes me even wow more is the song we sing as a form of prayer after dinner……

There is a room high above me, and a good place to sleep, food on my table and shoes on my feet. You gave me your love Lord, and a fine family. Thank you, Lord, for your blessings for me.

To be honest this is my night prayer, I will not lie and every time I close my eyes to sing it, I do it with one heart (unless the brother gives us wrong key/note that throughs us singers off key) I feel kind of warmth-ness wrapping whole of me, for I am sure I have a lot to be grateful for.

I always come to this house burdened. And after every visit I go back to a new me. Bright face and wider smile. Whatever these tables do to me, only I can tell you…but above all, the hospitality I receive from my brothers is even more fire, for them it is not a ‘big deal’ but I wish they knew how much they fuel my empty tank…and heal my wounded heart. For me, cooking for them is not a big deal either.  

Today as I prepare myself to decent to my daily duties and struggles, I pray for the many times I have been ungrateful, worried and hopeless due to what with my eyes cannot see any goodness in them and ask for the grace to be even more grateful as I go to face the Goliath of my vocation. In everything be grateful

My beloved spiritual father Saint Padre Pio once said ……“You ought to ask our Lord for just one thing, to love Him. All the rest should be thanksgiving.” – Padre Pio

BE GRATEFUL TODAY

Just like me, no matter what you are going through in life…you have so much to be grateful for. Just to wake up every morning with a reason to say, ‘thank you’. I know and I understand the reality of 2021 is not real…. constant life demand is tearing each one of us down, struggles, and worries make you like me to wonder, “is it possible to be grateful during struggles…. Most of us end up allowing defeat than a grateful heart to reign. Or we sometimes forget to maintain the attitude of gratitude during our lives, business and pressure. Just to have a stop sign on your desk or a reminder on your phone, today “THANK YOU GOD” for all that you have done in my life.

For me sometimes it is a strain to give a compliment and gratitude. I don’t feel it and I am not good at pretending to. I struggle and I feel tired and weary. Other times I feel that God failed me. I feel that He has kept not just social distance, but I can’t see Him at all …… He doesn’t really care what is going on in my life, I’m hurt. Painful life blows and betrayal may have recently sent you to despair but hold on your breath I tell you.

Everyday me and you have a choice. To give thanks or to keep it. But I assure you, with a grateful heart you will realize that you will pass in fire and not even a single spark will touch you… through the fire you will walk for God does not intend to help us out of it, but through it. His mightiness is shown through a grateful heart and a mind that is focused on Him. His power makes it possible for whatever is holding us to release us for it is by His peace that our joy is refueled.

The Good book is full OF stories of how great men and women of grateful hearts found favors in His sight. Grateful heat stirs up power from His graceful heart.

“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 1 Thess. 5:18