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Sep 25, 2005

Food for Thought

I dreamt that I went to Heaven and an angel was showing me around. We walked side-by-side inside a large workroom filled with angels.

My angel guide stopped in front of the first section and said, "This is the Receiving Section. Here, all petitions to God said in prayer are received." I looked around in this area, and it was terribly busy with so many angels sorting out petitions written on voluminous paper sheets and scraps from people all over the world. Then we moved on down a long corridor until we reached the second section.

The angel then said to me, "This is the Packagingand Delivery Section. Here, the graces and blessings the people asked for are processed and delivered to the living persons who asked for them."

I noticed again how busy it was there. There were many angels working hard at that station, since so many blessings had been requested and were being packaged for delivery to Earth.
Finally at the farthest end of the long corridor we stopped at the door of a very small station. To my great surprise, only one angel was seated there, idly doing nothing. "This is the Acknowledgment Section," my angel friend quietly admitted to me. he seemed embarrassed. "How is it that there's no work going on here?" I asked.

"So sad," the angel sighed. "After people received the blessings that they asked for, very few send back acknowledgments."
"How does one acknowledge God's blessings?" I asked.
"Simple," the angel answered. "Just say, 'Thank you, Lord."
"What blessings should they acknowledge?" I asked.

"If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep... you are richer than 75% of this world.

"If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

"If you woke up this morning with more health than illness... you are more blessed than the many who will not even survive this day.

"If you have never experienced the fear in battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation... you are ahead of 700 million people in the world.

"If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death... you are envied by, and more blessed than, three billion people in the world.

"If your parents are still alive and still married... you are very rare.

"If you can hold your head up and smile, you are not the norm, you are unique to all those in doubt and despair."

[Taken from Lectio Divina October '05 issue]
~~~~~

See... we have more than one reason why we should always be thankful. What are you waiting for? Let us send our acknowlegdments to God NOW and get the angel at the Acknowledgment Section busy (don't give him a chance to be lazy!!)! ;)

2 comments:

Matthew said...

Very nice post. I know that I especially try to thank God. On one forum I visit, I started a feature there called the monthly rosary intentions for people to pray the Rosary together. Anyone can add intentions although we only ask that those who add to the list also pray the Rosary for those on the list.

On my brand new Rosary blog I'm going to post some links there in a couple of days to my monthly intentions of that forum, and I will make sure to include a "thanksgiving" section where God is thanked for hearing our prayers.

Audrey Yu said...

Thanks God for revealing this article to me, or else I won't have the opportunity to share it with everyone.

Moneybags, that's a brilliant idea! I'll be looking forward to seeing your forum... I want to add my gratefulness to God too!! ;)