2022 #GratitudeRipples Challenge: Gratitude Affects More Than Just Me

Leaves crisp and alive with color crunch beneath my favorite pair of Chaco boots. The temperature is brisk and it clears my thoughts. It’s my very favorite time of year. The month that calls me outside to witness fall at its peak. The month we married and honeymooned in a cabin with a steep drive on the side of a mountain.

Gratitude makes sense this time of year. We will soon write thanks in lists, share it through Instagram photo challenges, and express it in words as we pass steaming dishes of Thanksgiving glory.

Every year we feel a shift when we focus on the little things that bring joy. Gratitude breathes new life into our weary, busy, and mundane. It glistens like hope through golden leaves. It lifts us like the wind that twirls leaves.

Is gratitude just a November thing?

But I have to wonder whether gratitude should be seasonal. Could November be an em dash, not an end stop? The habit that carries us through days short and cold, days alive with tender growth and watered hope, sun-hot days that simultaneously fill and drain us? A heaven-bent arrow etched into all we do—all year round?

Just imagine the effect of our gratitude if we practiced it all year!

What if our grateful response to God’s goodness in our stories seeped into conversations in our driveways, a gentle and neighborly nudge to look for God’s gifts in more places? What if we chose to praise God in the presence of others, even when the storm isn’t over yet, and it helped someone else look see beyond their own right-here-and-now? What if the testimony of our own changed lives inspired others to practice gratitude and see how it would turn their marriage, post-partum depression, naysaying, or nitpicking around too?

What if our gratitude opened space for others to heal, repair broken relationships, find freedom in Christ?

What if it’s a way to love our neighbors well—an overflow of knowing God’s reassuring love for us that spurs us into action, as 1 John 4:19 explains? In The Passion Translation, this verse reads,

Our love for others is our grateful response to the love God first demonstrated to us.

Gratitude is attitude and action, receiving and responding, being filled and overflowing.

Truth is, gratitude affects far more than just us. It has a ripple effect with a reach we may never know this side of heaven. And we short-change its life-changing potential when we limit it to the month of November.

So where do we begin?

Habits tend to stick when they’re doable and we have accountability. We set ourselves up for failure when we choose a giant goal rather than incremental smaller steps to move us in that direction. As James Clear reassures us in his book Atomic Habits, “All big things come from small beginnings.”

In the same vein, it’s far too tempting to give up on a habit if no one else will ever know. This is why accountability is essential to lasting life change. Jennie Allen’s words in Find Your People ring true: “Choose friends who have the potential to make you better. Then allow them to do just that.”

If your ultimate goal is to practice gratitude year-round so it continues to ripple out into your neighborhood and community, what if you start small and surrounded by community?

The #GratitudeRipples challenge begins Nov. 1

Every November, I provide a gratitude challenge for you and your friends to join. This year, the challenge will center on the truth that gratitude has a ripple effect. We’ll use an acrostic, Gratitude Affects More Than Just Me, to lean into gratitude with an eternal, kingdom-minded, neighboring-with-grace-and-intention perspective.

Will you join us?

To participate in this year’s gratitude challenge,

1) Save the gratitude prompts to your device. I’ve included a couple of size options:

2) Share your response to each day’s prompt (through words or pictures) on your favorite social media platform. (I’ll be sharing mine on both Instagram and Facebook.)

3) Follow #GratitudeRipples so you can engage with others completing the challenge.

4) Invite some friends to join you because a) it’s more fun, and b) you’re much more likely to finish the challenge if your in-real-life people know your goal.

My hope and prayer is that this gratitude challenge will jump-start your habit of gratitude that lasts far beyond the end of November and ripples out far and wide beyond you.

One more thing!

In addition to the annual gratitude challenge, I also host a gratitude series to help others cultivate year-round gratitude. Begin Within: A Gratitude Series turns two years old on November 1^st, and to celebrate, I’m joining a number of the contributors to offer a giant, gratitude-themed giveaway. The giveaway runs today, October 25^th through November 1^st. Three prizes are available:

PRIZE ONE: Getting Started Kit (to help you begin a gratitude practice). $200+ value

• Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts Devotional: Reflections on Finding Everyday Graces
• Disposable Fountain Pens
• Be Still and Know Faux Leather Gratitude Journal
• Gratitude Bracelet
• Original Gratitude Watercolor Painting (by Rose Jordan)
• Rae-Dunn Inspired Thankful Mug
• Nativity Garland (by Casey Hilty)
• Shaping the Soul: An Artist Collective (by Jennie Denney et. al)
• Shabby Chic Blessed is the One Who Trusts in the Lord Mug
• Gratitude Plaque & Two Tea Towels
• Box of 33 Affirmation & Scripture Cards 

PRIZE TWO: Cozy Fall Basket (to make you feel pampered). $125 value

• Cozy Neutral-Colored Throw Blanket
• $15 Starbucks Gift Card
• Apples & Maple Bourbon Soy Candle
• Set of Four Rustic Fall-Themed Coasters
• Hey There Pumpkin Mug
• Black and White Cedarwood Threads Scarf
• Leather Earrings
• Tazo Pumpkin Spice Chai
• Cozy Slipper Socks
• Count Your Blessings Apron
• Pumpkin-Themed Tea Towel
• Decorative Pumpkins & Pinecones Set

PRIZE THREE: $100 Amazon Gift Card (to spend as you please)

We’ve stuffed these prizes with so many lovely things. Enter the giveaway for your chance to win one of the prizes!

Check the link in the show notes for more details!

Let’s pray.

Jesus, as we look forward to Thanksgiving and what it’s come to mean for us, would you remind us that “our love for others is our grateful response to [Your love]?” May we say thanks first to You. And may we know how incredibly loved we are so your amazing love ripples beyond us into the lives of others all around us? In Your precious and holy name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

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