Unexpressed gratitude

At some point in the past, on one of those TV ministries I watch, I heard the point made that unexpressed gratitude looks the same as ingratitude. The point has stayed with me, recurring at odd moments – probably when something in my spirit was nudging me to speak aloud my gratitude.

As a plan of action for daily life, it’s not a bad one: to look for the moments, the people, the words, the actions that evoke gratitude in us, and then to go the next step and express the appreciation and thanksgiving. If someone does something that benefits you, there is a cost to not speaking up to say that you appreciate it, and that cost is that the person will assume you really do not appreciate it, that you must take for granted whatever was done, that you may in fact feel entitled to it, but regardless of the fine distinctions of your reaction, you must actually be ungrateful, because unexpressed gratitude looks the same as ingratitude.

So, today I have something to be grateful about and I am not going to leave it unexpressed. I discovered an author whom I’ve never read before, and I absolutely loved the story I read by her. The author is Linda McCullough Moore and the story, entitled “We Will Sing All Six Verses,” was in the May 2012 issue of The Sun. Even the title made me smile. I am leaving a short gratitude message on her contact page.