Gratefulness Happens Before Thinking

"...gratefulness is more than giving thanks. Thanking comes with thinking. Gratefulness happens before thinking — in that brief gap between “the dust of snow” and thought. It is the spontaneous response of the human heart to the gratuitously given." I have to chew on that thought for a while before I can swallow it. Gratefulness is more than giving thanks. Greatefulness is a spontaneous response to something pleasant. May be not necessarily be while something is happening. In fact, I may feel frustrated and even angry about something while being at the moment of it happening. Then later on, it can turn out that because of the very thing that upset me a while back, I realize later that I have been spared a much worse situation. Recently, my car won't start after a coffee break at a resting place along the highway. I still had a few kilometers to cover and I wanted to make it before dark. I reported my problem to our auto club online. After a long wait, my phone rang. I tried to answer it immeadiately. But the connection was broken after only two rings! I cursed. Then I tried to start the car again. No more problem, this time. We were able to continue with our drive. But just a couple of kilometers later, we got stuck on a stillstand traffic. It turns out that there was a very bad accident that just occured involving at least four vehicles. The whole four lane highway on our direction of travel had to be closed to rescue the victims and clean up the mess of the carambolage. We got stuck there for 3 and a half hours. Looking back, I felt grateful that my car did not start immediately after our coffee break. Otherwise we would be right smack at the location where the accident occured. The feeling of gratefulness was there spontaneously. I was able to "enjoy" our being stucked in traffic. I took pictures of the orderly lined up vehicles along the highway. It was my first time to get off and walk on the "Autobahn" in Germany. I talked with some of the other drivers. Although we were inconvinienced by the unexpected halt and long pause on our drive (most of us simply going home after a long day's work), we were all thankful that we were not involved in the accident directly.