I guess I never realized how deeply connected joy and gratitude really are until I began the practice of gratitude. There are loads of research these days on happiness and how to be happy, etc. I think gratitude is an essential key to well-being. I see the practice of gratitude and when I say practice, I mean literally verbalizes specific things I am grateful for or making a list.
Gratitude is definitely a gift from God. When we practice gratitude, we re-experience the good things that are present in our lives which produces feelings of joy. I think in today’s culture, humans are so fast-paced and focused on what we need to obtain. We also focus on what we don’t have and are constantly in a state of scarcity. It is as if our emotional battery is always draining like a cell phone battery. We simply get on the hamster wheel of life and never feel like we have accomplished enough, are rich enough, thin enough, successful enough and basically just not enough-you fill in your blank.
We are a fearful culture and I know gratitude has given me not only a true sense of joy but freedom from worry. Growing up in a home that practiced worry more than almost anything, I was a natural worrier. When things went well, I wondered when the shoe was going to drop, staying in a state of preparedness, squandering my joy of individual moments and living in the negative fantasy that worry is. This was exhausting. Gratitude practice has changed all of that. When my mind goes to worry now it is simply a prompt to begin a gratitude prayer for the things that are good and present reality for me.
For me, every day starts with a gratitude list for things as small as hot coffee and snoring pugs to larger things like my home, husband, son, etc. We also as a family have begun to state 3-5 things we are grateful for at the dinner table. Those items range from a cancelled soccer workout, to a good result on a test, a great meeting, the end of the day or one another. These practices have made a huge difference in our mindset and even my teenage son’s prayers reflect a more thankful disposition and if you have teenagers, you know that is no small deal!
Gratitude helps me remember the small yet special things in my life; I don’t want to miss those moments. Research shows that people who have lost loved ones actually miss the little things about them; things they bypassed and failed to fully take in due to the busyness of life.
The practice of gratitude also helps bank emotional energy for those times in life when we face trials and we will face them as part of being alive. God promises us in the Bible that in life we will have trials (James 1:2) and He also tells us to be anxious for nothing but in everything pray and be thankful and peace will guard our hearts. (Phil 4:6)
Gratitude practice has changed my life and it can change yours too. Make a list of whatever comes to mind in the morning as you sip your cup of coffee. I think all of us have many things if we really think about it to be thankful for. I truly believe the antidote to this culture’s striving and fear-based mindset could be tremendously impacted by the practice of gratitude. Try it for 30 days and let us know what happens!
I leave you with a few quotes to chew on!
Life is a gift, totally given to you without cost. A daily and chosen “attitude of gratitude” will keep your hands open to allow and receive life at ever deeper levels of satisfaction. Those who live with such open and humble hands receive life’s gifts in abundance and throughout their years, (“full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over into their lap” Luke 6:38). – – Richard Rhor
Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. . -William Arthur Ward
I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness – it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude – Brene Brown
Recommended reading: One Thousand Gifts by Anne Voscamp
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