We are thankful for one thing alone:

God has given the gift of love to each of us.

The ego is grateful because He has favored us in some special way while others suffer.

Salvation is an equal playing field on which everyone has been given everything. (There is nothing the ego scorns more than indiscriminate love.)

It is our responsibility to see it that way because that is the way it is. The way out of hell is the same for everyone.  We must learn to see the world forgiveness sees.

Let forgiveness extend to everyone without exception. Do not exclude anyone. There is only One Son of God: Christ.

(The words God, Christ and Son of God are symbols of symbols. They stand for Love. Love is Oneness.)

Saying “we are one” is not the same as Oneness. While we identify ourselves as separated selves– separate from our Creator and separate from others– our profession (according to the Course)  is to exclude no one from love. This is the means given us to reach the gates of Oneness: accept God’s Love by being loving.

As the lesson points out, we “earn” (symbolically) the right to love by being loving. God isn’t withholding love from us. We are keeping it  from ourselves. Earning the right is a way of saying we can give love until we accept that we are love. It’s a wonderful plan.

We have been given everything.

First of all, we never changed reality so it remains Love and we are still loveable. Secondly, our first loving action is to bless the world with forgiveness. FOR THIS we should be grateful. How beautiful.  How clean and simple and perfect is that? Who is unwilling to take part?

“You will be bound till all the world is seen by you as blessed, and everyone set free of your mistakes and honored as he is. You made him not; no more yourself. And as you free the one the other is accepted as he is.”     Lesson 200

We can offer our friends, family, colleagues,  partners, friends and enemies alike,  their freedom by looking at the thoughts we hold against them and deciding we prefer not to keep that point of view. In wanting to see differently we will.

When our forgiveness is complete we will have total gratitude.