Gratitude: Essential for Forgiveness

I'm incredibly scatterbrained this week with my blogging!  I have been trying to keep up with all the stamping challenges I am in charge of or on the DT for and I totally spaced posting on this blog!  I even made it on Wednesday!  Sorry! ;)  Luckily, there's still time to enter my digi artwork and thoughts into this week's Word Art Wednesday and also to Wendy's fabulous Scripture Sunday!

Here it is~

For some reason, as I read this verse and thought about it, it felt white to me.  I know that sounds strange.  I feel like I'm a very creative person, some of you may not agree, and sometimes things feel like colors or tastes or sounds to me.  But this felt white.  I associate the color white with purity and holiness.  I also associate it with repentance--that we can be pure and clean.  I know some of you are wondering where I'm going with this...

Here's where I'm going.  Lately, I've been thinking more about the type of person I truly want to be.  I am trying to be more forgiving so that I can be forgiven of my sins.  There are steps to repentance, I know that, but as I study the gospel more and more, I am coming to realize that true repentance incorporates every single aspect of the gospel.  This includes prayer and thanksgiving.  I believe that God not only wants us to be thankful to Him alone, but to anyone who does us a good turn.  I feel that ingratitude is one of the worst sins that we can commit.  If we are not willing to be thankful for the Christ-like service that is rendered to us by others striving to become like Him, aren't we also being ungrateful to the Being that made those hands and prompted them to serve us?  One of my favorite sermons from our beloved prophet, Thomas S. Monson, is about gratitude. He says:

“We can lift ourselves and others as well when we refuse to remain in the realm of negative thought and cultivate within our hearts an attitude of gratitude. If ingratitude be numbered among the serious sins, then gratitude takes its place among the noblest of virtues. Someone has said that ‘gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.’ …

“Do material possessions make us happy and grateful? Perhaps momentarily. However, those things which provide deep and lasting happiness and gratitude are the things which money cannot buy: our families, the gospel, good friends, our health, our abilities, the love we receive from those around us. Unfortunately, these are some of the things we allow ourselves to take for granted. …

“A grateful heart, then, comes through expressing gratitude to our Heavenly Father for His blessings and to those around us for all that they bring into our lives. This requires conscious effort—at least until we have truly learned and cultivated an attitude of gratitude.”

I want to become more conscious of all the blessings that are brought into my lives by those around me.  I do not want to be ungrateful and take things that are treasured blessings for granted.  In order to do this, I will have to forgive some things that have happened to me, ask for forgiveness from others, learn to be more patient and kind, and look for the good in everyone around me.  I know that I am not perfect, but I am grateful to a Father in Heaven who has given me everything.  Nothing that I have is of my own fruition--to Him be the glory!  My goal is to use the cards I make (you can see them here) to say thank you to Him for the talents He has given me and to tell those around me that I am grateful for their service.  I am not telling you this to make you think I'm a good person--I'm doing it so that I can be publicly reminded of my goal.  I hope you take the time to thank someone today, as well as God for all He does for us!  {{{HUGS}}} and blessings!

If you'd like a copy of this print for your very own, just click to enlarge, save, and print FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY!  For more disclaimers about my digital artwork, scroll to the bottom of my blog! :)