The focus of this Gratitude Series is simple. I’m turning gratefulness and thankfulness over in my mind and heart, seeing what shakes loose. If you start a Gratitude Series, please let me know on my Facebook Author Page so I can visit it. Carry on.
Thoughts have brought me to the starting and ending places I find myself staring at.
I have lived through a lot…
My sisters being born. My Abuela’s death. A college friend taking his life. The aging of respected elders. The death of a writer friend, who left behind books unpublished. Miscarriages, amid a sea friends having children and raising children…
The cycle of life and death never ends. And it shan’t, until the Great Creator deems it will.
But I see it now. I can be grateful and thankful for this cycle.
I express gratitude over life on Earth.
I express gratitude over death portals. (Death portals is just a nice way to say the spirit departing a person, as is the order of things now until the next age.)
I express gratitude that Yeshua* took the keys of Death and Hell in fair exchange.
When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid. I am the First and the Last, and the Living One. I was dead, but look — I am alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades.
Revelation 1:17-18 (Bible reference in the Christian Standard Bible version)
I express gratitude that Yeshua* is the Path to Life.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.
John 11:25 (Bible reference in the Christian Standard Bible version)
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
John 14:6 (Bible reference in the Christian Standard Bible version)
I express gratitude that in these things, I can rest, I can be at peace. One bigger than myself, bigger than all this, handles these things that I can’t control.
And for that, I can smile and say thank you.
*Yeshua is Christ Jesus’ Hebrew name.
Keviana Elliot 