Gratefulness Part 6
September 21, 2025
Gratefulness Part 6
When life seems to collapse around us, and we can’t see our way forward, there is always one thing we can do that shifts the energy. Yes, when we are at our lowest point and see no light, only darkness, we can turn things around by doing a straightforward exercise.
As a young couple with two young children, we were slammed with what seemed to be the end of our lives as we knew them. The program I worked for lost its funding, and of course, all of the teaching staff would have to find other jobs. For the past 11 years, I had been an assistant professor of Family Medicine at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. I taught Behavioral Science to medical residents, practiced psychology, researched, and wrote books and articles. It was my dream job, and more than that, it allowed us to raise our children in a small community where we had put down our roots.
We made a home, friends, and found a place for ourselves in our little town. Ben and Lauren were about 8 and 5, respectively, and had settled into their schools and had their friends. Their grandparents also lived nearby. Now we would have to move away for me to continue to make our living in medical education.
The day we learned that our grant had not been approved for renewal, the entire staff was shocked. I dreaded coming home to deliver the news to Lark. We had just taken out a mortgage the year before, with the realistic hope that all was well. The news that my job had ended was devastating.
I remember that night. Lark and I wrestled with the problem and thought of all the alternatives. There was nothing. We wondered how we would make it until a new job came through, wherever in the country it would be. Fear turned to sadness over having to uproot the kids and ourselves. It seemed as if we had lost everything we had worked so hard for.
“But wait,” we said to ourselves, “All is not lost; we may be in a crisis, but we have a lot going for us.” We began to name everything this tough spot could not take away from us. There were many. We took out sheets of notebook paper and, with magic markers, wrote something on each sheet that we were grateful for. Then, we taped the documents to the kitchen cabinets until the cabinets disappeared under the homemade signs of hope.
When the cabinets were full, we taped more sheets to the walls, floor to ceiling. We could look nowhere without seeing all that we were grateful for, all our support, and all the things that had worked out for us along the way. I recall that the first things we put on the sheets were our family and dear friends. Each got their own sheet in the newly “wallpapered” kitchen.
The constant reminders of our bounty inspired us and turned us from despair to hope. Gratefulness has an energy all its own, and it warmed our hearts. It gave us the energy to think of solutions that would allow us to stay in our town. Finally, we realized that we could shape a new career while keeping our same life, by my going into private practice in our hometown. It worked.
The visual evidence of our abundance and gratitude created a spiritual force that opened the way out of darkness and allowed us to embrace the wonderful changes ahead.
Spiritual practice: What spiritual practice would work for you, in allowing gratefulness to inspire you out of a seemingly impossible situation? Try that practice and process with a spiritual friend.
Self-inquiry: What is it about gratefulness that would hold the power to help you?
Prayer: Dear God, I pray to be able to embrace my abundance and to thank you for it, during good times and in those times when things appear to be hopeless. Amen
