Gratefulness

The sermon at church today was on gratefulness.  Since our pastor used to be an English teacher, I am sure she used the word gratefulness as opposed to gratitude for a reason.  The dictionary definition of both seems to be about the same.

Anyhow, today is my son John's 24th birthday.  We had breakfast at IHOP and the manager paid for our meal because we are such regular and loyal customers.  Something to be grateful for, the free breakfast and the fact that we are welcome there.  When several servers started singing a birthday song to John, he started to hit his head, so I had to grab his arms and hold him until they were finished singing.

John seems to have a hard time with special occasions.  I don't know if he is reacting to some disappointment that things don't live up to his expectations or what, but it is something that I have to work around.  Holidays are especially bad and I have to remove John to my office where he is not over stimulated.

We last for a couple of minutes at church today before I had to take John outside because he started hitting his head again.  This is one of those weeks that I am surprised that I don't get a visit from some adult protective services agency.  I am the one with the injured hand from the experience, not John.   We went for a walk and John calmed down and seemed pretty happy.  We went back into the service and I ended up holding him pretty tightly for most of the service. 

With all of that, I am sure that I did not pay 100% attention to the sermon, but I did catch a few ideas that I am going to have to think about.  

What I heard was that for a given situation, I have a choice of asking myself  "Why me?" or looking at it as an opportunity for gratefulness.  Whether or not Rev. Karen actually said what I heard or not probably doesn't make much difference.  

Since John was diagnosed with autism some 21 years ago, I have had a lot of "Why me" moments.  IHOP and  taking John from church this morning come to mind.  Not as many gratefulness moments though.  Like I said, something to pray and think about.