After Halloween, we just seem to skip right to Christmas, don’t we? Well, that’s what the stores would have us do, it seems. There’s more than a whole month in which we could already be getting gifts; the gift of gratefulness.
In November, we celebrate one of the best holidays. Thanksgiving is all about being grateful. And it is a gift to be grateful. Gratefulness leads to contentment, which leads to joy. To be thankful for everything you have is a choice. Everyone has something in their life that they can be thankful for. You have to choose to see it. It takes practice.
Did you wake up this morning, alive and breathing? Be grateful!
Do you have a roof over your head, clothes on your back and food to eat? Be grateful!
Do you have a job that provides you with a steady income? Be grateful!
In this country, we have so many choices. We can choose how we live our lives. We can try to improve our lives by learning. Libraries are full of books. We can change jobs if we don’t like them. People change houses to live in different climates. We can change our looks, our weight, our sex, our spouses. There are so many options that it’s easy to take what we already have for granted or to become discontent with it all.
There’s nothing wrong with improving your life. You should always be growing and improving. But you have to learn to be grateful for what you have or you’re just chasing the next best thing.
Gratefulness is a gift in that it teaches you to appreciate what you already have and to help you experience the joy that comes from living a life of gratitude and contentment. Some would have us believe that riches and fame and position are what make us happy and that just isn’t so. It may make us happy for a while, but the luster fades after a while and without gratefulness we’re just grabbing for the next empty bubble.
So this month, let’s practice gratefulness. Every day when you wake up, find one thing you can be thankful for. Write it down. Keep a journal of a whole month of gratefulness or just write it in your calendar or planner. You’ll be surprised when you look at the whole list just how great-full your life really is.
God bless. —Barb
