If you've ever asked how or why something bad happens, this is for you. It is therefore for us all.

We generally start off thanking people for things, help, or something of that nature. Then we may move on to thanking God for the good things we have or see around us. We may remember to say thank you as a childhood lesson to store clerks who are kind. These are all good things to be thankful for.

What then is the benefit of being thankful for the bad things that happen to us or around us? Why would anyone be thankful for a disease or the loss of a loved one, being in prison, being raped, losing a child? Why be thankful for war? I used to wonder about these questions. I still wonder why sometimes. But, I’ve learned a precious lesson.

Being thankful gives us a chance to move on. It helps us to let go of bitterness, arrogance, self justification, insensitivity to others and guilt. Being thankful is a very powerful tool. The art of becoming a thankful person starts in the mind. We know that we are supposed to have a thankful heart, but we just don’t feel thankful. Who would walk away from rape and immediately have a heart full of thankful feelings? I’m not promoting the ridiculous here. Who is going to lose a child and turn around with heartfelt thanks? I’m not going to. In fact, that is one of my greatest fears.

It starts in the mind, with saying it even if we don’t mean it or feel it at first. We first need to rationalize it for things as traumatic as those mentioned above. We must go through our grief. So there are generally things that we are not yet ready to feel thankful for but there is some part of it we can feel thankful for. For instance, if I were raped and got pregnant, chose to keep the child and love it and saw the beauty of that child’s first smile - that I can be thankful for. If you lost a child to cancer, you don’t have to be thankful right away that the child had to suffer through cancer. You may be thankful for the love that child brought into your life.

The rest comes with practice. I spent a year of my life on the project of being thankful for everything good or bad that I had done, had happened, or been done to me. I learned that it was an awesomely powerful feeling. What the freedom and the spirit of being thankful brought to me was priceless. I still find plenty of chances to feel sorry for myself. I tend to be a depressive person. So, I write things like this. I write a thank you card. I speak to myself and say, hey girl, you’re still here. These mental exercises help me to put thought to it and then effort. Later comes the feeling of thanksgiving.