How to Strengthen Our Relationships with Gratitude

November is sliding on by, and perhaps it feels a bit like you’re sliding along with it. We long to slow and savor, enjoy the cozy things and sip our tea. But the demands keep pulling, and the days keep rolling, and how are we already so close to Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving can be a paradox of polar opposites. Families coming together, or not so well. Beautifully laid out tables, or just on Pinterest. Time off, but the stress of planning for all the things. And sometimes the relationships that matter the most to us begin to fray at the edges, even (perhaps especially) in the middle of a holiday all about gratitude.

So I thought it would do yours and my hearts good, this week before Thanksgiving, to talk about how gratitude can strengthen our relationships.

Gratitude is often about little things, but it can change big things. Like tension in marriages. Like the tone we use when we talk to our kids. Like the conflict we’re torn up over and the discontentment that grays our days. Like the distance we feel when we pray.

Sometimes we don’t know we’re thirsty for gratitude, just that we feel dry. So today, my friend, I invite you to give gratitude a try.

I invite you to experience for yourself how gratitude grows, and softens the heart, and gentles the words. I invite you to experience how gratitude can be healing—for you, for your relationship with God, and for your relationships with others.

Gratitude turns our hearts towards each other

It’s hard to be mad at someone you’re saying thank you for every day. I know because it’s a road I’ve walked. If you’re married to someone a polar opposite of you, you know the refining that married life brings. You know how you can rub each other the wrong way, read between the lines and get it all wrong, wallow in self-pity because you didn’t get your way.

Yet I know that naming the good I know is true changes what I look for. I’ve walked this road too.

Last summer I made a resolve to include in my daily practice of writing out a few grateful-fors at least one specifically about my husband. And it turned my heart back towards him, reversed the subtle deterioration of our connection.

Who is it for you that the distance between you is unwanted and growing wider?

I know it can be hard when you’re feeling hurt, but I know the One who heals soul-scars, and He says thanks is part of His perfect plan. “And in the midst of everything,” I read this morning, “be always giving thanks, for this is God’s perfect plan for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess. 5:18 TPT).

Could this hard-thanks be full of grace? The thanks we give for the ones we love before the distance is erased, before the broken is made whole?

Gratitude helps us change first

We practice giving thanks for the people dear to us and a shift takes place. We become less defensive, less easily offended, and we more freely offer grace. We embrace humility, extend ready apologies.

We stop vying for approval, our place, our rightness.

We listen better, become more fully present.

We discover joy in giving preference to others.

Here’s why gratitude strengthens relationships: when we let go of the change we want to see in other people we can welcome growth in ourselves first.

So let’s graciously offer thanks, hold with open hands our wish-lists for others, and focus on the beautiful but hard work of becoming whole ourselves.

Because the bottom line is this: when we look for things to praise in another, it helps us be better.

Gratitude gravitates our hearts towards God

Not surprisingly, giving God thanks for the good in others also strengths our relationship with Him. It keeps wide open the door to communication. It helps us slow so we can hear His whispers. It increases our awareness of His nearness.

Naming the good in another changes our relationships because it helps us notice the gifts hidden in plain sight, and naming the gifts opens our eyes to see the Giver of the gifts.

If counting gratitude for the little, everyday things pivots my heart towards God, how much more so this counting of thanks for people?

So these days leading to and through Thanksgiving, let’s invite gratitude to strengthen our relationships—with people, and with God.

A prayer for the one wrestling with relationships

Here’s a prayer for you:

Today, Lord, I choose to plant thanks. Where I’ve been offended, I choose thanks. Where I feel used, I choose thanks. Where I’ve been unappreciated or misunderstood, I choose thanks. For the people I love but am learning how to really like, I choose thanks. I trust that the thanks I give can change my relationships because I know it can change me. Meet me here where my heart is soft and my hands are open. In Your dear and holy name, Lord, I pray. Amen.

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In case you missed it!

There are now gratitude-themed phone wallpapers and a printable of my favorite Psalms about gratitude (in The Passion Translation) in the FOR YOU library. Enjoy!