“I will be glad and rejoice in Your mercy, for You have considered my trouble; You have known my soul in adversities.”

It’s easy to thank God for the good times in out life, but what about the bad? We need to thank the Lord for His goodness; regardless of the circumstances we might be experiencing.

In 1636, amid the darkness of the thirty-year war, a German pastor, Martin Rinkart, is said to have buried five thousand of his parishioners in one year, an average of 15 a day. His parish was ravaged by war, death and economic disaster. In the heart of that darkness, with the cries of fear outside his window, he sat down and wrote this table grace for his children: “Now thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices, who wondrous things hath done in whom His world rejoices. Who, from our mother’s arms hath led us on our way with countless gifts of love and still is ours today.