How to Begin Practicing Gratitude
Because even practicing gratitude has a beginning
The date was 10.7.19 when I started at #1—ten days before our 10-year anniversary, and I started a running gratitude list at the very beginning with nothing but a mostly blank journal and resolute desire to give gratitude a try.
I’ve learned the only way to add #100 and #1,000 and now #2,692 to the list is to begin at #1. It’s to stop overthinking and second-guessing and just write the thing that comes to mind first—regardless of how small or silly it sounds.
The small things, I’ve learned, are just the start of great things. The things worth growing are easy to overlook in the beginning. They are not obvious, glamorous, or magnificent.
Take a seed, for instance. We push it down into the dirt, then wait and wait and wait for fruit, while that seed first dies, then breaks. The pushing downward of the roots comes before the breaking of ground in the upward climb.
If you’re new to practicing gratitude, it’s an uncanny lot like the way a seed grows. We have to accept the smallness and stillness of the beginning. We must learn to flow with rather than fight against the process. Good is growing even when it has yet to show above surface.
But nurture gratitude and it will flourish. It will root deep in your heart and spread its branches like a canopy over your life. You will enjoy its fruit, and you will share its fruit, and it will keep growing more fruitful.
But you have to start.
Maybe today you just need to pick up a pen and an extra journal or notebook and start at #1.
I’m cheering you on, and I know the writers who have shared their stories here on Begin Within: A Gratitude Series would say the same.
Our “why” for practicing gratitude
We’ve learned that gratitude is transformative. For ourselves. Our families. Our marriages. Our neighborhoods.
We’ve learned that God is always good but sometimes we need to look through a different lens to see how.
We’ve learned that thanking Him nevertheless deepens our faith.
We’ve learned that being thankful for the people in our lives makes us better. And change starts with us.
We’ve learned that often the hardest seasons become the ones we are most grateful for.
Do you have a moment more?
I’d like to share one story of how I personally am practicing gratitude.
Summer was busy for us, but in a different way for my husband and I. It’s prime selling season for him, and that means a lot of the rest falls on me, or at least that’s what it feels like when I focus on all I do that seems insignificant but necessary. I was letting resentment grow in my heart, and it was pushing us apart in subtle ways that were becoming less subtle.
But I know that gratitude grows. That gratitude is the before, not the after. That gratitude changes who I am in the middle of a circumstance that may or may not change, and that makes all the difference.
So I applied gratitude to my marriage. For exactly two years now, I’ve added to my gratitude list each day at least three things I am thankful for. Over the summer I intentioned to make one on my list for every day something about my husband I was grateful for.
And like a seed, it slowly began growing.
Maybe you find yourself in a similar place, begrudgingly showing up for mundane moments of your life. But you don’t want to continue down the route you’re going.
No matter how big or small the change is you’ve been praying for, maybe gratitude is a piece of the answer. Maybe your #nextrightthing is to plant a seed of gratitude now.
#ThankfulThursday
Before I sign pray a blessing over you, I wanted to share a quick change for the Begin Within series. Until this week, the stories have been released Sunday mornings. But beginning today, which perhaps coincidentally is two years (to the date) after I begin writing daily in my own gratitude journal, the stories will release on Thursday mornings.
I want to be sure you don’t miss the stories, so if you are not already getting them in your email inbox, you can let me know here to send them your way as well.
May you have the courage to start small and watch small things grow. May you embrace the process, walk in step with Him as He leads you through it. May gratitude grace your life, change you from the inside out, and ripple out beyond you. In the precious and holy name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.
Grace and love,
Twyla
Begin Within is a series to inspire a year-round lifestyle of gratitude that will impact not only your own life, but the lives of your neighbors as well. Gratitude is a theme we talk about often around here because it ties so closely into other missional living rhythms. Practicing gratitude reminds to keep our hearts soft and expectant and our eyes open. Therefore, the more we embrace gratitude, the easier it becomes to truly see our neighbors and where we can join what God is already doing in our neighborhoods.
If you would like to contribute to Begin Within, you can find the submission guidelines here.
Creating Ripples
If you would like to cultivate rhythms in addition to gratitude that will empower you live on mission in your neighborhood, check out Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. This small book will help you make a big impact in your neighborhood as you learn to let missional living flow from the inside out. Get the 30-day missional living challenge free when you purchase the book.
