Benefits of Gratitude

We ought to give thanks for all fortune: it is good, because it is good, if bad, because it works in us patience [and] humility….  - C.S. Lewis

Feeling and being thankful can't be forced. And it is a hurtful thing to say to a suffering person that he or she should be thankful or is lucky. No one would choose a life-threatening illness to strike us or someone we love in order that we might develop wisdom or a new awareness of the fragility of life. All the same, there is usually wisdom gleaned from the experience of being ill or loving someone who is. A cancer survivor once said that cancer is a growth, not a growth experience; yet when pressed, she admitted that it could be both.