Please Pass the Gratitude

Can you remember what was going on in your life last November at this time?  Maybe not, but it might’ve been the cluttered thinking, talking, sleeping and waking up with thoughts or complaints of pandemics and politics and the distancing that came about from both.  For many it wasn’t just about having despairing thoughts or strong opinions, it was about walking it out in sorrow and sickness.

It’s been difficult I know, so I’m trying to shift my sights at the way I look at things. If we reframe our perspective and see what came out of it within the everyday that got us through from then till now, we won’t take now for granted.

It’s easy to question if God was in it unless we look for the answer.

Hopefully, in this special season we will be able to gather with family and friends and receive it as the opportunity and blessing it is and not just the familiar trek to Granny’s. Many of us mechanically sit down to a table overflowing with traditional food and view a tv screen as large as the wall with the traditional football game. But do we notice the chairs — the ones that are occupied with our people and the ones that are empty that once were? Instead of creating a gratitude list, it would be helpful to just take a quick trip around our head and realize what we take for granted.

We can be thankful for the simply amazing if we just let simple things amaze us.

Our family has been through too much not to be thankful – I’m sure that’s true for you, also.  Only we can intentionally glean the gratitude out of the times when it’s been easier to feel overwhelmed.  Our choice.  So catch the conversation this holiday – instead of another gripe session may it be about loving our people and passing the promise of hope to one another.

We don’t need something extraordinary to happen in order to be grateful – all we have to do is notice the extraordinary that’s already happened.  May you be blessed with a spirit of thanks-giving remembering all the goodness of our God.

Perhaps it takes a purer faith to praise God for unrealized blessings than for those we once enjoyed or those we enjoy now. 

AW Tozer