Spirit Daily

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From 2002 (archives):

Of Thanksgiving, A New Daughter -- And How Gratitude Opens The Door To Grace

By  Michael H. Brown

Did you ever think about how much time we spend asking God for something -- and then how much time thanking Him when our prayers are answered? Usually the prayers of thanks take up much less time -- certainly too much less. Yet when you think about how many things we should be grateful for, you start to realize that the prayer of thanksgiving could easily be our longest.

Here, in this time, where we live, we're thankful for a new baby, Mary Rose, who came last week. We prayed that she would be healthy, and so far, God-willing it remain so, she is; we prayed my wife would come through it well (she's 42), and so far she has, splendidly; we prayed for a specific doctor, and though there was only a one-in-five chance that this physician would be on duty when she delivered (and though we were already stretching the odds, since we got him for our previous two kids), in the end he was on duty when the time came, without our knowing he would be on duty, and delivered this one as well. We'll ask the actuaries out there to calculate the odds of that for us. We prayed for the best time of day and best time of the week and it worked out perfectly (my wife Lisa went in during the morning and had an early afternoon delivery toward the end of a busy work week, just before the little Thanksgiving hiatus). We prayed that the baby would be born on a feast day of the Blessed Mother -- and she was born on the only such major feast day this month, November 21: feast of the Virgin's Presentation. We'd like to thank all of you who prayed; your prayers were felt like a tidal wave.

We had also prayed for the right name, and I kept getting "Mary." Our other two are Elizabeth Grace and Joseph Michael -- and some very interesting things occurred with those pregnancies. We were out in San Diego giving a retreat with a special nun named Mother Nadine Brown when my wife was carrying Elizabeth, and when we asked Mother Nadine to discern a name, she came up with "Elizabeth Grace," as did a second nun -- precisely the name we were planning on! So did a visionary friend named Estela Ruiz.

This time, we couldn't believe how many people "knew" the name. We had decided on "Mary Rose" because of the Blessed Mother and because Mary is my mother-in-law's name, while Rose is the name of my mother. Roses are always associated with the Blessed Virgin. It just made sense to us. But it was a secret. We didn't tell anyone in our immediate family. Yet our daughter Elizabeth kept saying that if it was a girl it should be "Mary Rose" (she said that specifically on several astonishing occasions); we kept hearing it echo in our prayers; and just before Mary Rose arrived, we received an e-mail from my sister-in-law -- who told us not to open it until the baby was born (it was her guess on what the name would be). When we opened her e-mail, of course, the guess was "Mary Rose." And just today, one of our neighbors, who is Muslim, called to see if we had the baby and, if so, what it was -- because over the weekend she'd had a dream that we'd had a girl and named her Mary!

I'm sure you've had these things happen to you, because the more we pray -- the more we give thanks -- the more grace keeps on coming. What a joyful time! What a week to give thanks! And how that thanks opens God's floodgates. That's how generous He is: at the first sign of gratitude, He sends us even more, and fills us with His peace. Even in adversity (and all of us share in this), we give thanks for the purification of suffering -- and for overcoming the tests of life. No matter how we are feeling, genuine thanksgiving will offer relief. So thank Him. Thank Him at every turn. Thank Him for each day -- for every moment. Thank Him for adversity and victory and suffering and joy, thank Him for the many times you haven't thanked Him enough, thank Him for hidden grace -- thank Him for your very existence! When you thank God, He is listening very closely. Why is thanksgiving necessary? Because to thank is to acknowledge; to thank is to return love. Every breath we take is a grace. We thank Him for our first breath, for each in life, for our last, for the sweet breath of a baby. When you really think of it, there are endless things to thank the Lord for, literally endless -- just as the eternity for which we are destined is endless and will offer endless time for praise.

[resources: Christmas books]