Skip to main content

Take Time to be Thankful

Today is Thanksgiving here in America, a day filled with family, turkey, and football. It's also a day to reflect on the things we are thankful for (which may or may not include the family, turkey, and football). However, I think thankfulness should not just be reserved for one specific day.

The leader of a group on Facebook that I am a member of has created a "30 Days of Thankful" challenge for the group members. Each day, she posts something she is thankful for, and the rest of us reply with things we are thankful for that day. Doing this every day has really challenged me to think every day about what I'm thankful for, which means that I have been more open to seeing the good in each day. Not only that, but since I have decided to write something different each day, I have been challenging myself to come up with a variety of things to be thankful for. I have enjoyed the challenge so much that I plan to continue thinking of at least one thing I'm thankful for each day. I want to challenge all of you to do the same.

In 1 Thessalonians 15:18, St. Paul instructs us to "give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." That tells us that not only is thankfulness a good idea, it's what God wants from us. He has given us everything we have, and he wants us to acknowledge this. In addition to helping us be more in line with God's will for our lives, it also helps us to be more positive. It's hard to have a bad day when you are actively looking for a reason to be thankful. Admittedly, some of the things I said I am thankful for were things that helped me get through difficult days. You can do this too. We probably all have days where it's hard to find something to be thankful for, but every day has one, even if it's just the fact that we made it through the day.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Outside Looking In

(My post Life>Death  chronicles my struggle with suicidal depression. This story is based on the vision God used to save my life.) It all started after the knife sliced through my wrist. As I watched my life drain away, I felt a sense of peace. I knew my pain was finally over. Soft arms lifted me up and carried me off to Heaven. There I watched as my parents found my body. They started to cry, which I had expected. What I hadn't expected was what they were saying. "What did we do wrong?" they cried out. "Nothing!" I screamed. "You did nothing wrong!" But they couldn't hear me. What had I done? As my friends and other family members found out about my death, they said the same thing, and I continued screaming that it wasn't their fault. Their reactions caused me to be in agony, which struck me as strange. If indeed I was in Heaven, wasn't I supposed to be pain free? That is what I had always been taught. Then came my funeral. It...

My Fun October

This last month has been a blast, and I wanted to share the highlights with you, my loyal readers. So here, in chronological order, are the events that made my October a great one. Kansas Authors' Club Convention:  This took place the first weekend of the month right here in my hometown. Even though I have been a member for a few years, this was the first convention I had been to, mainly because I didn't want to pay for the convention and a hotel room. I am so glad I went, and I enjoyed it so much that I'll probably keep going every year even if it involves travel and a hotel. I learned so much from the sessions I went to about honing my craft that I came home eager to write more often. I also met some awesome fellow writers including the Poet Laureate Emeritus of Kansas. He was very fun to talk to and loves to eat bread, a fact I later wrote a poem about. One of the sessions I participated in was a poetry and music event. Each poet read their piece once, then two jaz...

Just a Girl

"And he came and said to her 'Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you.'" - Luke 1:28 Last week we celebrated the birth of our Savior, and people around the world read about the miracle of His conception, the trip to Bethlehem, the shepherds, the angels, and the wise men. There are many characters in this wonderful story of our faith, but I want to focus on one in particular: His mother Mary. Of all of them, she was the first to know about what was about to take place, and the first to have to accept her part in the story. Most of the images depicting Mary show a lady in her mid-twenties at least, the age many would associate with someone engaged to be married. However, this is likely not the case. In that time, it was common for a girl to become betrothed when she was still in her early teens, often to a man who was much older and had already established a career. Jewish betrothal was as binding as a marriage, with the only difference being that the man had n...