“Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama on June 27, 1880. At 19 months of age, she contracted meningitis. The disease rendered her both deaf and blind. Through the help of Anne Sullivan, who was partially blind, Helen started learning how to write and read. Anne started teaching Helen the names of objects by pressing the manual alphabet into her palm. She learned to speak by placing her fingers on Sullivan’s larynx to hear the vibrations. In what was seen as a miracle, Helen learned to read and write in Braille and became exceptionally proficient in the ordinary educational curriculum. She graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College. Despite her handicaps, Helen was not only grateful; she devoted her life to assisting the deaf and the blind. She toured the world to promote the education of the persons similarly disabled. “For three things I thank God every day of my life,” Helen said. “Thanks that He has [given me] knowledge of His works; deep thanks that He has set in my darkness the lamp of faith; deep deepest thanks that I have another life to look forward to – a life joyous with light and flowers and heavenly song.”

Each of us has a special circumstance, a special hardship, given to us to draw us closer to the Lord. Are you grateful for the circumstances in your life? Today in prayer, give thanks to the Lord for the hardships in your life that you may depend more fully upon Christ’s grace.

“I thank God for my handicaps, for through them I have found myself, my work, and God.” – Helen Keller

God’s Word: “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” – 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

By Peter Kennedy, Copyright 2002, Devotional E-Mail DEVOTIONS IN PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING pkennedy@devotional.com