«This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it» (Psalm 118:24, NLT).
One of my favorite words is «gusto.» This little word is written and pronounced the same in English and in Spanish, but it has a different meaning in each language. In Spanish, we say food has good gusto when it tastes good; in English, gusto is used to describe the enthusiasm and delight someone feels when taking part in an activity, like singing for instance. Ever since I learned the meaning of the word gusto in English, I feel like living with gusto is like eating something delicious. It means savoring life, delighting in every experience we go through with joy and energy. Gratitude is needed to live that way. We need to learn to pay attention to the myriad of miracles surrounding us that we often overlook.
I recently learned that every woman is born with the amount of ovules she will have throughout her life, because ovaries do not produce new ovules after birth. That means the ovule that formed me was inside my mother when my grandmother was pregnant! Take a minute to savor that thought. It is like Russian dolls: one goes inside the other, inside the other. . . From the ninth week of gestation, feminine fetuses begin «producing» ovules. So there is a very small part of me that was inside my mother and inside my grandmother, a long time before I was born. When I stop to think about that miracle, I thank God for making me wonderfully complex, for being an unsurpassable Artist (see Psalm 139:14). But when I do not stop to observe beauty, I am like someone who swallows food without chewing, as if in a hurry: they burn their tongue and can no longer taste anything.
I want to savor this day; to enjoy the sunlight coming in through the window, the dog at the bus stop, a conversation with co-workers at lunchtime, and taking my shoes off when I come home, I do not want to lose out on a single miracle, or a single flavor God gives me. Today I choose gratitude.
Dear Jesus, I am often in such a hurry that I do not notice the beauty around me. But today I want to go back to my childhood curiosity. I want to be filled with wonder, to read the stories written on leaf veins and wrinkled hands. I want to be filled with gratitude on this day You have granted me.