Gratitude to Joy: 3-Week Neighborhood-Focused Gratitude Challenge

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This I know, that gratitude births contentment and contentment births joy. But I am one who knows, and then forgets, and needs to come back again to peel back another layer of the learning.

There was once when I was awarded a certificate for the “Most Positive Student” award. I never learned who nominated me, or if there were even any other nominations—but as much as I preferred to not be publicly recognized it warmed my heart a little to know that a little joy inside can touch someone else, can spark something to life in another human being.

My hallmark optimism yielded to the adulting pressures after graduation, though, and I realized one day how quickly I negated something good, could talk myself out of something brave, and could pick out the less-than-than perfect in work performed. I didn’t like this person I had become.

I wasn’t exuding positivity; my life was not graced with abundant joy as it once had. I wasn’t as happy inside. But it wasn’t because of anything going on outside of me, but rather what was missing within me—a heart of gratitude.

When I live out of the overflow of a truly grateful heart, I learn with the Apostle Paul “to be content whatever the circumstances” (Phil. 4:11, NIV). I can find delight in even the simple, everyday moments I easily take for granted: the ordinary hum of the dryer, the softness of clothes I carefully fold, the pleasant warmth of the water as I scrub a pan clean. I can be content in moments too when worry-ridden thoughts are flung inward and sink quickly as lead, when the pain rips wide open my heart like a curtain, when I feel empty but still full of questions. A thankful heart looks for the good, the blessings, even in the jagged and worn. And what I look for, I will find: if I look for something to give thanks for, I always find more than I bargained for. Gratitude births contentment.

And out of contentment swells something more: joy! When I am content regardless of the circumstances, I set my heart free to know deep, residing joy. I choose to be content with the slow of the process, with questions still lingering on my lips, with my actual life—and the fog clears, and I see more clearly Whose I am. When my eyes are open, I see evidence of Him all around me. Open my eyes, Lord! Gratitude begins in my heart, turns my eyes towards Him, and my feet then follow. Oh, to be near Him! What joy! Contentment births joy because my contented heart is drawn towards Him, and He is the true Giver of Joy.

I press on for more, turning through the pages of my life, reading the white between the lines. Joyful people are at rest on the inside no matter the storm on the outside. I knew this more surely when I lived many hours of many days face-pressed into the carpet in relentless surrender, when I gave my time as worship, traded my tears for peace. The demands on my time have grown with every addition to our family, but I know the path well—know where to find the One whose name I bear.

I know well the path, but I still sometimes forget to seek, forget to praise, forget to let adoration fall from my lips when the fog is thick. So here I am today, to remind you, but also myself, that a whispered thanks makes a way for a contented heart, and only a contented heart can be filled fully with joy.

Inspired by Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts, I’ve begun to let my thanksgiving fill journal pages. Every morning I write a few lines of numbered gratitudes. As I type, I am up to 113. 113 remembrances to be content. 113 times I’ve opened my heart up to a little more joy. And I am beginning to feel it in the way that I see treasures instead of annoyances, people instead of processes. I am finding my way back to joy.

Here we are, in the month of November, the month many of us think about thanksgiving and gratitude more than we do the rest of the year. Perhaps you are wishing you had started a gratitude challenge at the beginning of the month, or perhaps you would welcome one more.  

I am inviting you to join me on a simple endeavor to choose intentional gratitude for the people in our lives we too often forget to be thankful for: our neighbors. Beginning today and ending with Thanksgiving, let’s take a brief moment each day to put words to a prayer in response to the prompt for the day. The prompts are each intentioned to cultivate gratefulness in our hearts for our neighborhoods and the people living within them. I believe that in giving such thanks, we will find our joy increase, but also our hearts growing more tender towards our neighbors and the work that God might invite us into in our own neighborhoods.

Today I give thanks for . . .

1. A reason you are grateful to live in your neighborhood.
2. A neighbor across the street from you.
3. A neighbor whose house you can see from one of your windows.
4. A neighbor family with kids.
5. A neighbor who often appears to be alone.
6. Something kind a neighbor did for you.
7. A neighbor who always wears a ball cap.
8. A verse that you can pray use to pray over your neighborhood.
9. The neighbor kids gathered at the bus stop.
10. A neighbor two doors down from you.
11. A neighbor you often see outside walking their dog.
12. A neighbor twice your age or half your age.
13. A neighbor you haven’t yet met.
14. A neighbor two doors down from you.
15. The first neighbor you met when you moved into your house
16. Something you love about your house that you can share with others.
17. A neighbor whose yard always looks amazing.
18. A talent you have that could bless a neighbor.
19. A neighbor next-door to you.
20. A neighbor you seem to have nothing in common with.
21. A neighbor you have gotten to know (even a little bit).

Would you pray with me in response to the first #GratitudeToJoyChallenge prompt?

God, I want to discover how to live with a grateful heart, content with where I am and what I have. Teach me to freely give thanks back to You for all You have given. Today I am thankful for neighborhood I get to live in. I am grateful to live in my neighborhood because _______________________.

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