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At the beginning of this month, I read several articles about thankfulness as I was preparing my Sunday church service for the Thanksgiving weekend. Something that struck me as I researched the concept of thankfulness is that it is something we can experience and feel continuously. Thankfulness does not need to be only a reaction or a momentary feeling after having received something; it can be a feeling we carry with us continuously by choice. Being thankful is not always easy nor the first response many of us have to whatever is going on in our life on a given day. There are many days we feel we have little to be thankful for. But if we expand our scope of vision and look past moments of thanklessness, we will see that life has not been as hard on us as we might feel in a given moment of hardship.
I have been challenged by an old high school friend of mine who lives in Ontario. My friend has posted on Facebook something they are thankful for each and every day over the past three years, since the Covid 19 outbreak. It has been amazing to see all the different things they have been thankful for over the past three years and it has challenged me to look closer at the things I would be thankful for if I only stopped and considered how blessed my life has been.
What are some things you can be thankful for in this season of thanksgiving? Maybe your life has not gone in the direction you were hoping. Maybe you are going through a very difficult time. My challenge to you is to take a few moments to list a few things that you can be thankful for. Being thankful won’t take away life’s difficulties but it may very well provide a more positive life outlook. An outlook where we will not allow the bad to overshadow the good.
Being continuously thankful is not about denying the hard realities life throws at us. It’s about remembering the good things in your life as you tackle the bad. This thanksgiving season, take a few moments to consider the good in your life. What do you enjoy in life? Who are those people in your life that make you smile? What dish or dessert can you never get enough of? These are the things you can focus on to maintain a life stance of thankfulness.