At a Sunday school class, a teacher asked the students what they were thankful for. An 8-year-old boy blurted out, “I’m thankful I wear glasses.” Since most boys that age don’t like to wear glasses, the teacher asked him why. The boy answered, “Because it keeps the older boys from fighting with me and it keeps the girls from kissing me.”

This little guy had the right idea! He was able to take something that most would see as an obstacle and take it as an opportunity. One could say that he had the attitude of gratitude.

Some might wonder how you can have the attitude of being grateful when we are having very trying times. A man told a Benedictine monk he just lost his job, his father was very sick and one of his kids was having trouble in school. With all that, he wondered how he could still be grateful.

The monk answered that if all that happened to him, he could not feel grateful, either. But the monk went on to say that gratefulness was not a feeling; gratefulness is an attitude. We can have a grateful attitude toward life, but there are times we may not feel grateful.

In life, we must remember that our feelings are not under our control; but our attitude is.

God bless.