Life is the greatest gift I have received. Because I am alive, everything and anything is possible for me. If I have everything, what else can I ask for from the Lord except to be eternally grateful for the precious gift of life he had gratuitously given me.
And yet, I ask for so many thing in prayer. I ask for a life of ease and comfort, of leisure and pleasure, not realizing that these are all mine for the taking or the making. I only need to look around to see what I am seeking for.
In time of pain and adversity, I cry out to the Lord to save me from my misery. And yet he has already given me everything I need to overcome suffering. He gave my mind to find the solutions I need. He gave me a heart to give me courage to pursue the solutions I have discovered. He gave me my body for the muscles and strength I need to make the solutions I have conceived happen.
The many times he has answered my prayers, I have thanked him almost as an afterthought. I would often do so while patting myself at the back, thinking what a good person I have been for God to have answered my prayers. And my sense of entitlement grows worse, not realizing that I should be down on my knees in humility and gratitude to such a munificent and all-loving God.
If I look over my entire life, it was in fact in those moments of pain and suffering, those times that I dared to carry the cross that I accepted when I followed Christ that I have truly encountered and found God. It was at my lowest and most desolate moments that I truly found and encountered God. It was in my emptiness that I felt God filling me up. It was in my darkest moments that God shone his light upon my confused mind. It was in my utter desolation that I found myself humbly thanking him for all the graces and blessing he has poured upon me.