Only With Gratitude

Grateful while in Prison

Is it possible to remain grateful and joyful even in the worst of circumstances, such as when your rights are taken away from you, or when you are imprisoned for what you believe in? What if you were condemned to die for a wrong you did not do? Could gratitude still be an option? For Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the answer was a resounding yes. He said, “In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich”.

—“Gratitude.” RaoulWallenberg.net, The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation website. [Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2011). “Gratitude.” RaoulWallenberg.net, The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, www.raoulwallenberg.net. 

Letters and Papers from Prison

In 1943, he wrote a letter to his parents, the first of his letters collected in Letters and Papers from Prison: “My dear parents, I do want you to be quite sure that I am all right. To my surprise, the discomforts you usually associate with prison life such as its physical hardships don’t seem to trouble me at all. I can even make a good breakfast each morning of dry bread… I can still hear the hymns we sang this morning. ‘Praise ye the Lord, the Almighty, King of creation. Shelters thee under his wings, yea, so gently sustained.’ How true it is! And may it ever be so… Spring is on its way now with a vengeance. In the prison courtyard there is a thrush that sings a beautiful little song every morning, and now has started in the evening, too. One is grateful for little things, that also is a gain.”
Not too long after he was taken to the concentration camp, Bonhoeffer was implicated in the attempt on Hitler’s life by the resistance group and was condemned for treason. Bonhoeffer’s unbelievable sense of gratitude and cheerful disposition in even the worst situations were remembered fondly by his friends and impressed even his jailers. A British officer who was one of the camp survivors said: “Bonhoeffer was different, his soul really shone in the dark desperation of prison. He always seemed to spread an atmosphere of happiness and joy over the least incident and profound gratitude for the mere fact that he was alive. He was one of the very few persons I have ever met for whom God was real and always near.”

Additional Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes

“Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.
Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.”

—Dietrich Bonhoeffer [Costly Grace, transl. R. H. Fuller, revision by Irmgard Booth (1959)] p. 45.

“God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.
Costly grace is the sanctuary of God; it has to be protected from the world, and not thrown to the dogs. It is therefore the living word, the Word of God, which he speaks as it pleases him. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

—Dietrich Bonhoeffer [Costly Grace, transl. R. H. Fuller, revision by Irmgard Booth (1959)] p. 49.

“Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God — the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God. Where are these responsible people?”

—Dietrich Bonhöffer [Letters and Papers from Prison, 1967] p. 5.