The Importance of Gratitude: My Thoughts

By David A Ferguson

The Importance of Gratitude is based on my own personal experience of how important it is to practice gratitude on a daily basis. It is about research that has been done on the benefits of making gratitude a part of your daily life. It's also based on personal stories that will hopefully inspire you. The book will describe in detail the benefits that you can get from being grateful. I guarantee that once you start reading this book you will not put it down until you are finished.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Jun 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9780228861621

Book preview

The Importance of Gratitude

My thoughts

David A Ferguson

The Importance of Gratitude

Copyright © 2021 by David A Ferguson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-4789-2 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-4788-5 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-6162-1 (eBook)

Table of Contents

Growing up in Manchester

Losing My Job

Giving Thanks

Research

Power of Gratitude

Lack of Sleep

Faith

Questions

Hope

The Love of God

Gratefulness

Thankfulness

InspirationLove of God

Being thankful* * *

Giving Thanks

GratitudeGiving Thanks

The Importance of Gratitude

Gods grace and mercies

The Importance of Gratitude

God’s Promise

Gods loveGratefulness

My Daughter

I would like to start by giving thanks to Almighty God for giving me the inspiration, wisdom, knowledge and understanding to begin this journey of sharing my thoughts with you on the importance of gratitude. And what are some of the benefits you can receive just for showing gratitude? You will never know how little it takes to be grateful. A lot happened to me before I realized the importance of gratitude and that is why I have decided to share my own experience with you. I am going back to where it all started, and my hope is that you will journey with me to the end. I promise you that you will be as inspired as I am when I share this journey with you. Why am I going back? I do believe in my heart that in everything we do there has to be a beginning and so I would like to share with you all where it all started and where I intend to end this journey. To God is the glory.

Growing up in Manchester

I grew up in a small town just outside of Christiana in the Parish of Manchester, Jamaica, in the 1950s. Its population then was about 3,000 people, and they were the friendliest group of people I knew back then. As a little boy growing up, it was as if everyone one in this district knew who I was because of my dad; he was a really popular guy. I was maybe seven years old but from what I can remember my dad loved me with a passion. How did I know? I was told this every day by members of our community. As a little boy growing up, I was loved by almost everyone in my district because of my dad’s popularity. I am grateful for the time my dad was around. There are days when I think about him, and I know in my heart that he left too early, but I am not going to ask why. God knows why he had to take him from me so early. The love I got from him in those seven years I have never experienced since.

I will leave the rest of my father’s story for another book. I have promised myself that one day I will write another book and title it The Pain of Growing up without My Dad. To this date, and even at this age, I wish my dad had lived a little longer, but I understand now that God knows all things best, and everything he does he does for a reason, so I take comfort in that thought.

Manchester, famous for its relatively cold weather, is situated in the centre of the island of Jamaica, so what you find is that for the older folks, when it reaches around six at night, you can see them in their sweaters. Even though Jamaica is a tropical country, the evenings in Manchester do get a little cooler. When you talk to folks in Jamaica and they ask you where you’re from and you tell them Manchester, their first response is always, It’s cold up there, especially when I say I’m from Coleyville. That name says it all because it does get very cold, especially in December.

As young children, we had to be up by six o’clock each morning, and at that time of the morning, it’s like fall in Canada, but I was accustomed to that kind of weather. Most of us had to walk maybe three kilometers to school, so we would get our chores done by 6:45 am and be ready to leave home by seven because school started at eight o’clock sharp. There was no choice but to walk as most parents could not afford bus fare; they could barely find lunch money to give you every day. But as children growing up, we were happy to be able to go to school even if we had to walk in the rain. We were happy knowing that we were able to go to school, and for me, I did love going to school. Today I can say how thankful and grateful I was to be able to go to school back then—not that I knew what it meant to be grateful at the age of seven.

Manchester, at its highest point, is about 840 metres above sea level making it the only parish in Jamaica without a river. Mind you, it had a lot of streams. I remember in my district there was a place where the water came out of a hill. We called it River Bottom. As children, we would go there to collect water in buckets so our parents could have enough water to wash our clothes. We didn’t have Laundromats or washing machines, so all our laundry was done by hand. My friends, the beauty of all this was that no one complained. People were satisfied with the little they had. Everyone accepted this was the way of life and everyone was grateful for what they had during those times.

The Parish of Manchester is surrounded by water, linking parishes like Clarendon, Trelawny, and St. Elizabeth, but this water is at a lower elevation, making it a poor water supply for Manchester. What you find is that most people there are forced to build some kind of catchment to collect water. That way when it rains, they have water for their daily use. Some people also build tanks. All our water had to be pumped up the hill from the surrounding parishes, and as you likely know it is hard to pump water up a hill. Even though there were pipelines and standpipes throughout the district, we would have to keep checking the pipes to see when there was water: it all depended on how much pressure was pumping the water up the hill. We had to take into consideration that the demand was great and because of that, we could go days without any water in the pipes in our area. This was a common occurrence.

Because my parish is the only one on the entire island of Jamaica without a river, I also might be one of the few guys in Jamaica who did not learn how to swim. Our parents during those days did not have the time or think it was important for us to learn to swim. It was not something we thought about it. I don’t really know if my parents could swim. I never heard them say they were going to the beach, and they certainly never took us to the beach. I am guessing they could not afford it. So, who knows, maybe they could not swim either. Even at my age today I still don’t know how to swim. I am afraid of the water. I will go to the beach, but I won’t go into the water. Who knows, maybe one day I will learn how to swim.

Manchester, from what I can remember then, was a farming community. Almost every household did some kind of farming. Since it wasn’t a manufacturing parish, there were few jobs to be had back then, so everyone relied on their crops—mainly bananas, yams, potatoes, and sugar cane—as their main source of income. I don’t know about now, but during my time growing up, most of these crops were being exported. Farmers would sell their crops to the government and the government would in turn export those crops to say USA and Canada.

So, despite not been afforded the luxury of learning to swim or going to the beach, I learned from a tender age to appreciate the things I had and to be grateful for all that I had. This is why I wanted to give you a brief look at where I came from and where I started. I grew up not knowing the importance of gratitude and the importance of being grateful for small mercies. I am not saying my parents did not teach us how to pray. We were taught to say our prayers before going to bed at night and before having our meals, but I did not understand the importance of gratitude and thankfulness until I became an adult. Back then the word they would use was grace.In other words, we would bless our food or say our grace. All that was saying then was that we should give thanks for the meal we were about to partake of. So, growing up I realized that this meant giving thanks for what you are about to receive, but I wasn’t taught the value or importance of giving thanks for everything that happens to me each and every day of my life.

Most of my parents’ time was spent thinking about the next meal, how and where they were going to get money to send us to school the next day or buy uniforms for us to go to school. There were days that I could not go to school because we had no money for lunch, or I had to go help my parents in the field that day to plant or reap the crops. That was the norm in most farming communities in Jamaica. My parents could not afford to hire someone to help them with the reaping or planting so as children we had to do our part. It wasn’t that there was no help, they had back then what they use to call day sport, meaning I help you today and you come back and help me when I need help. This was the way of life.

When I became an adult, I realized the importance of giving thanks for everything that happens to me throughout the day. I learned to not only give thanks for what I have but also for what I don’t have. When we pray, pray for today, for as the bible teaches us in Matthew 6:34, we don’t need to worry about tomorrow as tomorrow provides for itself. My friends, God knows all of our needs. He knows our heart’s desire. He knows things about us even before we do.

There is this prayer I remember that goes like this: Heavenly Father, I give you thanks for today. I thank you for all that you have provided for me today and for those prayers that you have not answered yet I give you thanks and praise, through your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Just a simple prayer giving thanks and being grateful. Making gratitude apart of your and your family’s way of life will bring you so much joy and happiness.

Each day of our lives, when we think about it, there are so many things that we have to give thanks for: for simply waking up, for the sunshine, for the air we breathe, for the rain, for every working limb of our body, for being able to get out of bed. These are such blessings and millions around the world are not as fortunate as you and me. Think about going to sleep at night. If someone doesn’t tell you the next day what had happened