Here we are, a week before Thanksgiving. Your facebook news feed is probably full of all of your friends' daily thankfulness. i.e. "#14 - I'm thankful for my dog." It's November, for goodness' sake. Thankfulness is - dare I say it? - somewhat of a trend.
I am definitely not saying that it's wrong to do those little daily thankfulness facebook statuses. I'm clearly all about that, since I do it every week! What I'm saying is that I think it's beneficial to be aware of the ebbs and flows of various trends and decide how much you want to allow the trend to control you. Also - some things/ideas that start out as trends, maybe should become habits or lifestyles. Maybe it looks different in different seasons, sure. (you might lose track of the number of facebook statuses if you tried to do that every day forever... "#9873 I'm thankful for spoons to eat soup...")
But are there other ways that you can show gratitude as a part of your lifestyle?
Something that would be characteristic of who you are?
That way when people look at you, it would be obvious that THAT is a person who is thankful. That person recognizes blessings.
[The purpose of recognizing blessings is simply to give praise to God for all that He gives us. So when I talk about a lifestyle of Thankfulness, maybe what I'm really getting at is.... habitual praise.
It really is all about HIM anyways.]
Today, I will turn these blessings into praise! Thank you, God, for...
- Thanksgiving break! I am so excited to sleep, have time to work out, spend hours in coffee shops, write, journal, start getting ready for Christmas, skype with my family... it's going to be great!
- Unexpected encouragement. A random phone call from a sweet friend full of positive affirmation and truth. A quick conversation with a respected leader that helped guide healthy perspective.
- Birthdays! I've had so much dessert and good food this week to celebrate! I just love birthdays. :)
- I'm thankful for my trip to Spokane last weekend... the quality time with friends, the talks on living with Kingdom vision, the pull on my heart to go on missions. Still so much to process!
- An amazing Cru (campus crusade) staff team at BSU.
- A free gym membership at the Rec Center on campus. ("free" meaning, included in the ridiculously expensive tuition that I - and the government - pay every semester) I'm reminding myself that I really am thankful for this so that I'll maybe actually use it sometime soon.
- A great place to live. I am so blessed by this family.
- It's Friday! I'm looking forward to quality time with a lot of friends this weekend.
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