Henry Ward Beecher was a famous clergyman in the late 1800’s, perhaps best known for his opposition to slavery. But much of his preaching centered around God’s love for us. At one point he
wrote the following: “Imagine someone gave you a dish of sand mixed with fine iron filings. Imagine you search for the filings with your eyes and comb for them with your fingers. But you can’t find
them. Now imagine that you take a tiny magnet and draw it through the sand. It comes out covered with iron filings.” Beecher concludes, “Ungrateful people are like your fingers combing the sand. They find little in life to be thankful for. Grateful people are like the magnet sweeping through the sand. They find hundreds of things.“ If God asked me to isolate the three things I am most grateful for in my life, what would they be? Why these? Ralph Waldo Emerson, another famous writer from the 1800’s, penned these words: “For the flowers that bloom about our feet; For tender grass so fresh and sweet; For song of bird and hum of bee; For all things fair we hear or see, Father in heaven, we thank thee.”
