Gratitude Part One

 

Gratitude (a noun) described and defined by the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. 

 

We are a week and half out from Thanksgiving, I am wondering ~ how is your attitude of gratitude?

Please know that it is an acceptable answer right now to honestly, with heartfelt openness, say: “Depleted,” or “Gratitude? Now? Have you been watching the news at all!”  Or maybe you stopped reading this post.

 

Wait…come back…please!

 

I know gratitude is easier to express at some moments than it at other times. We can go through seasons or times when our attitude of gratitude is not being nourished and nurtured.  Then, there moments when we do have God goosebumps racing down our arms; perhaps taking us by surprise.

 

Have you had a moment of God-goosebumps recently?  A moment of awe or feeling surrounded by the sacred or sensed your soul leap – even it was a millimeter? 

 

Perhaps part of this is realizing that gratitude (like grace and love) is not something we possess or control ~ rather gratitude/grace/love are all energy that possesses and controls us.  Gratitude alongside grace and love can feel beyond our grasp and understanding.  Gratitude (sorry Dictionary) is not a noun, it is a verb.  Gratitude has energy, life, and a flow we can be caught up with engaging.  Maybe gratitude is a muscle, one that we struggle to exercise, rightfully so, in the last year.  We can’t just flex our gratitude once a year, it is a daily practice.  Sometimes our gratitude might just be thankful for our ordinary cup of coffee or appreciating the comfort of our robe that keeps us warm.  Gratitude for friends and people who love us.  Gratitude for a piece of pizza and ice cream (which is the meal I wish the Pilgrims served at Thanksgiving).

 

Check in with the gratitude part of your life.  Name and notice whether you are on a scale from glowing with gratitude to your gratitude feeling smoldering low like the final wisps of smoke from a fire that has just been doused with water.  Maybe your gratitude is running on fumes.  Maybe you sense a spark of thanksgiving.  How full is your gratitude tank?

 

Check in with your head, heart, soul, and life; check in with family and friends on how their gratitude is doing; check in with me as your pastor.  Rekindling and remembering gratitude need not be an isolated, individual exercise.  Like all exercise gratitude is better in community.  I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Prayer: Abundant, extravagant, heaping grace upon grace God, we open our lives to You this day knowing that You meet us where we are.  Whether our gratitude tank is full or on fumes, help us and open us and hold us this day.  Remind us that if the only prayer we pray is, “Thank you,” those two words are enough to change us.  Amen.