A Grateful Heart

A Grateful Heart

This is the day the LORD has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 118:24

Scientists are latecomers to the concept of gratitude. Research psychologists have tended to look down their noses at gratitude as little more than a question of having good manners and remembering to say thank you. But that’s changing. New gratitude experiments by social scientists seem to be popping up across university campuses.

Consider one of the most revealing experiments to date. Robert Emmons, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, and psychology professor Michael McCullough of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, took three groups of volunteers and randomly assigned them to focus on one of three things each week: hassles, things for which they were grateful, and ordinary life events.

The first group concentrated on everything that went wrong or that irritated them. The second group honed in on situations they felt enhanced their lives, such as, “My husband is so kind and caring—I’m lucky to have him.” The third group recalled recent everyday events, such as, “I went shoe shopping.”

The results: The people who focused on gratitude were happier by far. They saw their lives in favorable terms. They reported positive feelings, fewer negative complaints, and they even reported experiencing better health (fewer headaches and colds). They also offered more grace to others and did more loving things for people. Those who were grateful quite simply enjoyed a higher quality of life because they had found the secret to surrender.

Dr. Emmons was surprised. He found that this is not just something that makes people happy, like positive thinking. A feeling of gratitude really gets people to do something, to become more pro-social, more compassionate. Such was not the case in either of the other two groups.^a

The bottom line is that your life is never more full—and your marriage more fulfilling—than when you are joyfully surrendered and conscious of your blessings. Husbands and wives who feel grateful for each other and for the blessings around them are more likely to feel loved as well as do loving things. What are you grateful for today?

If you concentrate on finding whatever is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.

—Harold Kushner

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