Sunday, February 8

Praise!


Praise and thanksgiving do not magically change my circumstances. They radically alter my viewpoint.........(Jennifer Kennedy Dean)


Sometimes it takes a good film to drive home a point. The local film club screened a film that kept talking to me. ‘The Doctor’...cast by William Hurt is an arrogant surgeon. When throat cancer takes hold of him, he gets a taste of his own medicine. Then he meets another cancer patient who is critically ill. From pain and arrogance, she teaches him to move to thanksgiving and praise...to forgiveness and longing. From disillusion, the Doctor learns to look at the birds of the air and the grains of the fields..the Doctor learns to look into another world of care and courage. He, together with his fellow cancer patient sings and dances...till all the pain and loss fades away.
Can I praise difficult circumstances and thank misfortunes? Oh, that requires real courage! The Holy Bible tells me of scores of men and women who did exactly that. In a real-life contemporary drama, the Doctor too tells me the same.
Today I want to pray a simple prayer....“God, show me people who sing in pain and praise in sorrow. Show me more of that world. I want to grow closer to you in all seasons of life!....Amen”

Followers