Grace & Gratitude
New Gratitude Questions
Where does your gratitude come from?
When does it appear in your heart?
And is it conditional?
These may not be the questions asked at your Thanksgiving dinner if you have a holiday tradition of sharing gratitude moments, but these are the questions I am thinking about as this year’s season of gratitude is held right in the middle of the traumatic fires and shooting images, not to mention my own personal family tragedy that’s heavy on my heart.
These are important questions to ask if you are having a hard time finding something to be grateful for in the middle of stressful times. Are you thankful when things are going your way? Or are you able to find gratitude in recognition of God’s grace? This year I invite you to look at gratitude as a response to your belief in and awareness of God’s grace.
Grace and Gratitude
Gratitude takes on so much more meaning when it comes from a recognition of God’s grace. God’s grace is a free gift from God. It is God’s very life within your being. There is no earning it; it is always around. All we have to do is recognize grace, name the grace, and give thanks for the grace. It is the best formula for gratitude.
Recognize Grace
Every moment of every day will present an opportunity to recognize God’s grace. Whether it’s a comforting phone call from a friend or a beautiful golden leaf that has just fallen off a tree at the change of the seasons, you can always find expressions of God’s beauty and love.
Name the Grace
Once you recognize God’s grace, give God the credit, especially in the ordinary moments. The more you praise God for the seemingly ordinary moments of grace, the easier it will be to find them in the more stressful moments of your life. The more you get in the practice of finding your grace-filled moments, the more you’ll be comforted that God’s presence is always around.
Give Thanks for the Grace
When you give thanks to God for every moment of grace, you are making your gratitude practice a prayer. This practice will sustain you through anything, as opposed to a gratitude practice that comes from everything going your way, which is not a recipe for a peace-filled life.
Rooting your gratitude in God’s grace makes gratitude an awareness that every moment is a pure gift from God. The more I recognize this, the more I see there are no entitlements in life and the more I treasure each moment, each person, and each event in my life as a beautiful act of love from God.
Practice Gratitude
Rooting your gratitude in God’s grace keeps you connected to God’s joy and goodness. Last weekend I held a thank you dinner for some of the women in my neighborhood who helped me and my family during my son’s 25 day nightmare in the hospital this past summer. Making the dinner, planning my friendship prayer and creating a special evening for them fed my soul. Of course it did not take away the pain of losing my son, but it did connect me to the God-centered goodness that I experience through them. Those feelings of God’s goodness transcend the pain. Those moments of pure love fuel hope.
This month I invite you to practice gratitude with an awareness of God’s grace. It will fill your heart with love and offer the promise of hope.
Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. 1 Corinthians 13:7