Grateful for the Rain
Photo taken by Madeleine; Awesome raincoat c/o Melissa
One of the toughest and best years of my life
Those who know me know that I love lists. Shopping lists, to-do lists, goal lists, packing lists... I could make a list of the lists I love. Lists are TLC for my sanity. Lists are a balm for my soul. Lists make me feel like I've been wrapped in a warm, fuzzy blanket fresh out of the dryer and handed a mug of hot chocolate and my favorite book while the snow falls softly outside in the night. If that's not love, I don't know what is.
Well yesterday, I started working one of my favorite lists to date: 1000 things I'm genuinely grateful for. This experience is changing me. And I love it. You'd be amazed at how easy it is to see the blessings in our life when we train our eyes to see them and cultivate a mindset of gratitude. 1000 seemed like a lot when I started, but it has been so easy. That's the beauty of it--that is how blessed we are!
I challenge you to write your own list. You don't even have to finish by Thanksgiving--what better time to be mindful of our many blessings than the Christmas season? I just challenge you to finish... Finish and then keep going! God has surely blessed us with thousands, even millions of things to be thankful for.
Just to get the wheels turning in your mind, when was the last time you were grateful for:
- Oxygen and the CO2 cycle?
- Vaccines?
- A circadian biological clock? (We get to sleep for a third of our time every day!)
- Zippers? (Can you imagine having buttons/ties/snaps for everything? Jeans would be so awkward!)
- Control over your bodily functions? (Having studied Gerontology, that's something we young bucks definitely take for granted.)
- A particular verse of scripture that you love or a talk that really spoke to you? (For me recently, Jacob 2:18-19; How Do I Love Thee--Elder Holland)
It’s so easy in life for us to receive blessings, many of them almost uncounted, and have things happen in our lives that can help change our lives, improve our lives, and bring the Spirit into our lives. But we sometimes take them for granted. How grateful we should be for the blessings that the gospel of Jesus Christ brings into our hearts and souls. I would remind all of you that if we’re ever going to show gratitude properly to our Heavenly Father, we should do it with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength—because it was He who gave us life and breath. -David B. Haight, 2002
One word of caution to those putting together thankful lists: when we get down to being thankful for things that generally are the status quo, we have to at least temporarily accept the premise that there could be a situation in which those things did not exist. And to think too much about the idea that thousands of parades of horribles could be in our lives but gratefully aren't, can actually be quite depressing or unnerving. Sometimes it is just good to appreciate that the real premise underlying existence is that life is good.
ReplyDeleteGoodness, my siblings are so eloquent and intellectual. Jake I had to read your post a few times over to get the meaning of it. :)
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