I'm grateful to God for His bountiful gifts... He gave me courage

Host: The sunlight poured through the tall church windows, spilling gold and dust across the wooden pews. The air was still, fragrant with the faint scent of old hymns, wax, and the quiet ache of memories. Outside, the world hummed with the muted sounds of traffic, but inside—inside was the silence of reflection, the kind that wraps around the heart like a soft prayer.

Jack sat in the back pew, his elbows on his knees, a crumpled note in his hand. His grey eyes were fixed on the flickering candlelight at the altar, the flames trembling as if unsure of their own existence. Jeeny sat beside him, her hands folded, her gaze steady on the old stained glass where a painted figure of Mary held the world in her arms.

Host: Neither spoke for a long time. The weight of the place—sacred yet human—seemed to hold their silence with reverence. Then Jeeny broke it, her voice gentle but filled with conviction.

Jeeny: “Loretta Young once said, ‘I’m grateful to God for His bountiful gifts... He gave me courage and faith in myself.’”

Host: Jack’s head tilted slightly, a faint smile ghosting his lips.

Jack: “Faith in yourself, huh? That’s an odd thing to thank God for.”

Jeeny: “Why?”

Jack: “Because if you believe in yourself, what do you need God for?”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the point,” she said softly. “Maybe God doesn’t want worshippers. Maybe He wants creators—people who believe in what He put inside them.”

Host: The light shifted across her face, catching the soft lines of her eyes, turning them amber. Jack looked at her for a long moment before looking away.

Jack: “You talk about faith like it’s oxygen. I’ve never understood that. You can’t prove it, can’t measure it, can’t replicate it. It’s like believing in a voice you can’t hear.”

Jeeny: “And yet, you breathe it,” she said, her tone calm, certain. “Every time you refuse to give up. Every time you rise when logic says stay down—that’s faith.”

Host: Jack’s jaw tightened. He ran his thumb along the folded edge of the note in his hand.

Jack: “Faith didn’t stop my father from dying. Didn’t save my business when it collapsed. Courage didn’t pay the bills. You tell me, Jeeny—what exactly are these ‘bountiful gifts’ worth when life keeps taking everything back?”

Jeeny: “They’re worth everything,” she said quietly. “Because they’re the only things that can’t be taken.”

Host: The candles flickered. The air seemed to tremble with the sharp edge of truth. Jeeny’s voice softened, but her words were steady, like a thread pulled through pain.

Jeeny: “You think courage is about winning? It’s not. It’s about facing what you can’t control—and standing in the ashes, unafraid to try again.”

Jack: “That sounds romantic when you say it. But the world doesn’t reward courage. It rewards cunning.”

Jeeny: “Then the world’s wrong.”

Host: Her eyes glowed with quiet fire. She turned toward him, her hands resting on the edge of the pew.

Jeeny: “Loretta wasn’t naïve, Jack. She lived through wars, through a world that treated women like they couldn’t think for themselves. Faith wasn’t luxury for her—it was survival.”

Jack: “Faith in herself. Not in God.”

Jeeny: “Both,” she said. “Because faith in God gave her the courage to believe she was worth more than what the world allowed her to be.”

Host: The bell tower outside began to ring—a slow, resonant sound that seemed to roll through their bones. Jack leaned back, his face half in shadow.

Jack: “You ever notice how the faithful always say they ‘believe’ instead of ‘know’? It’s like they admit it’s not real.”

Jeeny: “No,” she said gently. “It’s the opposite. Belief is what you hold onto when you don’t know.”

Host: The word when lingered like the echo of the bell. Jeeny’s gaze softened as she studied him.

Jeeny: “You’ve faced so much, Jack. You’ve been broken, but you’re still standing. Don’t you see? That’s the courage she was talking about. You didn’t get it from luck or logic. Something deeper carried you.”

Jack: “You think God carried me?”

Jeeny: “I think something sacred inside you did. Call it God. Call it grace. Call it the stubborn pulse of a soul that refuses to quit.”

Host: A faint wind slipped through the old church doors, stirring the candles, whispering through the pews like a quiet reminder that even air unseen still moves the world.

Jack: “You always make it sound so easy.”

Jeeny: “It’s not,” she said softly. “Faith isn’t comfort. It’s courage. The kind that gets you out of bed when everything else has gone dark.”

Host: He looked down at the note in his hand—the handwriting uneven, hurried. It was from his late mother. He’d found it only yesterday, tucked inside an old book of hymns.

He unfolded it. The paper trembled slightly between his fingers.

Jack: (reading quietly) “Keep your courage, my boy. Even in silence, God is still speaking.”

Host: The words hit him with quiet force, as if they had been waiting for this exact moment. He stared at them for a long time, his throat tightening, his breath catching.

Jeeny watched him silently.

Jeeny: “She believed in you. Maybe that’s where your courage began.”

Jack: “Or maybe it died with her.”

Jeeny: “No,” she said gently, touching his hand. “It just forgot how to speak.”

Host: The contact was brief, but it was enough. He exhaled—a slow, trembling breath—as if letting go of years of disbelief.

Jack: “You think God still listens to people like me?”

Jeeny: “He listens most to people like you,” she whispered. “The ones who stopped pretending they have all the answers.”

Host: Outside, the light shifted, the clouds breaking to let in a single ray of sunlight through the stained glass. It cut through the gloom, landing on the worn hymnals stacked by the altar. The world felt suddenly alive, trembling with a fragile, holy beauty.

Jack: “I don’t know if I can believe the way you do.”

Jeeny: “You don’t have to,” she said. “You just have to stop running from the parts of yourself that already do.”

Host: A long silence stretched between them, filled only by the ticking echo of the church clock. Then, slowly, Jack placed the note on the pew, smoothing its edges with care.

Jack: “You know,” he said quietly, “for the first time in a long while... I don’t feel angry. I don’t feel lost either. Just... grateful.”

Jeeny: “For what?”

Jack: “For the fact that maybe—just maybe—something greater than me never gave up.”

Host: Jeeny smiled, her eyes warm with quiet relief.

Jeeny: “That’s faith, Jack. Not certainty. Gratitude.”

Host: The sunlight brightened, painting their faces gold. The dust in the air sparkled like tiny prayers ascending. Outside, the wind had quieted, the city softened into a lull of peace.

Jack stood, slipping the note into his pocket like something precious.

Jack: “Loretta was right then,” he said, his voice low but resolute. “Faith and courage—they’re gifts. You just have to stop doubting you deserve them.”

Jeeny: “Exactly,” she said. “And once you accept them, you start living like the world still believes in you.”

Host: The camera pulled back slowly, framing the two of them walking down the aisle toward the door, their footsteps echoing through the church like a heartbeat rediscovered. The light followed them, spilling across the wooden floor in waves of quiet grace.

Host: As they stepped outside, the sun broke free completely, washing the world in gold. Jack paused, tilting his face upward, eyes closed, the faintest smile curving his lips.

Host: And in that single moment, between doubt and surrender, between pain and peace, he looked—finally—like a man who had found not answers, but courage.

Host: The scene faded with the whisper of Loretta Young’s words echoing like a benediction:
“I’m grateful to God for His bountiful gifts... He gave me courage and faith in myself.”

Host: And as the last light flickered, the church bell tolled once—clear, soft, eternal.