A whole year of intentional gratefulness. I am challenging myself to this.
I have seen this kind of challenge in many forms. From a few days or a week, to the whole month of November, the Thanksgiving season always brings it out of people. Which is great because we should all take the time to reflect on what we are grateful for in our lives. Recently, I have decided I need to make this more of a habit. Sometimes, in life, it's harder to find things to be grateful for than others. Especially when things aren't going as planned or as we think they should.
Currently, I am trying to learn how to "be content in whatsoever state I am" (Philippians 4:11) and that's definitely not the easiest thing to master. For me, at least. I know that being grateful is one of the best ways to achieve this. The thought of doing this challenge for a year makes me hopeful for change. I think that this intentional gratefulness has the power to completely change my perspective on life and that's what excites me about it. I found this quote and thought it just reinforced the idea behind why I want to do this challenge.
"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity... It makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow." - Melody BeattieI love the concept of that quote and I really believe in it.
This week, I reflected on how extremely grateful I am for my family. My parents, sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts... all of them! I have a large family, which I recognize is a blessing in itself. But I don't just have a large family; I have one that is very close, sticks together and truly supports one another. In this day and age, that's rare. My family has changed a lot over the past few years - loss, sickness, relocations - so things definitely don't look like what they did before. Although that's hard, I'm still very thankful for the bonds we share. I recognize that many people don't have the loving support system that I do, which makes me more grateful for it.
I realized in writing this that I've never shared a pic of my fam here before! This is a pic of me with my sisters and my parents.
With Thanksgiving having come and gone, I thought this was the perfect time for me to start this challenge. So, every week from now until next Thanksgiving I will be sharing something for which I am grateful. I did actually find some prompts for this challenge, but I don't think I'm going to stick too closely to them. I will probably use them when I'm needing some inspiration.
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday with their loved ones! What were you grateful for this year?