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Today during gospel doctrine class, we got talking about gratitude, and there was an interesting question posed, which I hadn't considered.  It was incredibly vague, but sometimes those are the best questions to ask.  The question was simply,

"What do you think of gratitude?"

At first, I thought it was a horrible question, but then I got off my high-horse and really thought about what I think of gratitude.

I've lived a large portion of my life doing my best to be grateful for the things I've been given, but I haven't spent much time pondering the blessings given for being grateful.

One major blessing I thought of while pondering this was, joy.

Whenever I'm on my knees after having been blessed with a new job, a new baby, a successful teaching experience, a renewed love for my wife, or whatever it may be...

One of the first things which comes after being truly, humbly, and honestly grateful is joy.

Think about it.

What good does a gift do you if you aren't grateful for it?  Well...  If I got a new hammer which helped me perform some task, then I get to use the new hammer.

Now, if I'm grateful for this gift, I get to use the hammer, AND I get to be happy about it at the same time.

Some years ago, I got a gift from a person I didn't know very well, and the gift wasn't what I was expecting at all.  I said my thank-you's and gave hugs 'n' such....

But at the end of the day, I didn't feel any happiness at all for having been given that gift.  It was a pretty useful item, but I didn't, and still don't, feel any gratitude at all for having received it.

I'm just typing as I'm thinking of this, so, I'm not at all sure if any of this is at all doctrinally correct, but in my life, it rings absolutely true.

Some of the happiest times in my life are when I've experienced honest-to-goodness gratitude toward God with my friends and family.

How does it make you feel when you tell someone how grateful you are for their friendship?  How does it make you feel when someone tells you that?

Now, imagine that you have a friend (Heavenly Father), who is anxiously engaged in nothing but what is for your good, and your ultimate happiness.  Now, imagine how He must feel giving us pretty much everything we have, and then getting some gratitude in return.

Well, if His response is any indicator of how He feels, then he must be very, very... grateful for it, because gratitude has been one of my all-time "feel good as a human being" - type doctrines.

I guess D&C 78: 19 could be quite true.  Guess it depends on your definition of "glorious".

I love the whole concept of gratitude.

I'm grateful for my life, my wife, my kids, my parents, my family, my friends, my home, my job, my temporal possessions, my lifestyle, and my Savior - to name the equivalent of a drop in the ocean of blessings my Heavenly Father has given me.