Gratitude – Spiritual Address by Lainey Baine

I was going to talk about the word gratitude. I know Chris Gill spoke about 30 days of being grateful for things challenge. Basically, I’m just grateful that we had a spare laptop that I could use, and we know from the very first time that I was here, I used this laptop then, I should have just stuck with it. 

I’m being grateful for everything really, being grateful for being alive is the first thing that I would like to be grateful for. No matter how hard and how difficult our life is, we can choose to not be grateful. We can choose to be sad. It’s a choice, and sometimes that choice is not an easy choice to make.

I’m grateful for the fact that I’ve got a laptop and you can hear me, but I’m also grateful for the fact that I’ve had friends, I’ve had family, I’ve had people around me that I’ve never met before being so kind, so compassionate, so caring and thoughtful and giving each other help. And just generally being there for people. 

People have even lived in the same place for many, many years and have never met their neighbours. They might see them go by, but have never spoken to them. But because of this situation that we’re in, they’ve made new friends, they’ve made new support, they’ve actually become a community again. It’s not happened for everyone, but for the majority it has. 

Let’s just hope, and I’ll be grateful if people will do this, that they’ll continue this compassion and this companionship, because there are far too many lonely people out there that would really benefit from having such an open friendship. I’m seeing that people can hear me again now, so that’s always good, so I’m grateful for that, as I’ve already said.

I’m also grateful for the thanks that people are sending. I’ll be grateful if Spirit speaks with me and through me, that would be even better. I’m grateful for the fact that the guys at Thundersley Spiritualist Church have invited me along and for the incredible work that you do for so many people. Apparently there are people from around the world that would never have been involved in this, but have come through it because of the lockdown and the situation that we’ve found ourselves in.

I just wanted to say that I don’t want it to sound all light and fluffy and praise be, but it is praise be, because we should praise what we do, what we each achieve. Just smiling at somebody, smiling from the inside, that is gratitude and being nice to yourself. It has to start with yourself liking yourself. Being thankful for things like having a barbecue, I’ve just had one a bit before I started this evening. It’s just about being grateful for everything. 

I know that this is the address, but I’d also like to just repeat a bit of the prayer as well. Just asking the divine source to surround each and every one of us with their love and their guidance, the healing and blessings, the compassion, the understanding. To help us be thoughtful of ourselves and of others. I would like to say thank you so much for being here this evening. 

• Spiritual Address given by Lainey Baine during Divine Service on 31st May 2020.
• Watch her live service here.

Source: Thundersley