Category Archives: Jonathan

WITH A GRATEFUL HEART – by Cresi Heslop

In order to look to the future meaningfully, I need to start by looking back. Thus when I look at our past journey, the emotion that immensely overwhelms me is an absolute sense of gratefulness.

Also, being conscious of the time of year that we are in, gratefulness ties up well with the American Faith tradition of Thanksgiving that I have always loved.  A tradition originally declared by Abraham Lincoln, in the midst of the civil war as he called on the American people to ask God to “commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.”

Thanksgiving so beautifully ushers in the true Spirit of Christmas, as the world prepares to celebrate with gratefulness the birth of our Saviour.

I am grateful for so many things but within the context of this Blog I will only mention a few:
I am grateful for:

• our top of the mountain experiences, for it gave us the joy and rich reward that hard work always pays off.
• our down in the valley experiences, for it taught us humility. It taught us that we needed to lift our heads up high despite dire circumstances, and live to fight another day. It gave us the determination to carry on and look with hope to the future.
• our mundane, day to day experiences, for it taught us to that consistency is a powerful ingredient when mixed into the great pot of success.
• our early start, meaning that we were blessed with the insight to expose our sons to many different types of sports and extramural activities. Then we stood back to allow them to make the final choice.
• our pastors, mentors, coaches, role models, biological, non-biological and spiritual parents, for they gave us a sense of hope to dream big. (And they still do!).
• our books, as they say “a good book finds you, you don’t find it”. Being the librarian that I am, I believe in the power of reading and the power of the written word.
• our million moments of joy and fun while on this life journey, for it taught us that in all things we should seek the joy element, because accumulatively it leads to a wonderful sense of having lived in, and experienced the moment fully.
• a sense of community, for what would life be without family, friends, coaches, teachers etc, who care and are there for us, even across borders and far away seas. It reminds me of one of our beautiful African proverbs that says “if you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far – go together”.
• the sons with whom we are blessed with. To sum up how we feel about them “our cup runneth over”.
• lastly and definitely not the least – Our Creator – “the Alpha and the Omega” – the One who makes all things possible!

In general, gratefulness for the moment that we are in should become a daily and practiced habit.  Living consciously and intentionally in the moment gives us the freedom to take off the shackles of the past and blissfully forget the worries of what the future might hold.