A Grateful Heart

A year ago I set a goal during November to update my Facebook status each day with something I was grateful for.  Thinking about it on a daily basis brought to me an incredible sense of just how very much my Heavenly Father loves each of us.  It was a very uplifting experience, one I should have continued doing each and every day.

But I didn't.

Too often my prayers relegate the gratitude part to "I thank thee for all my blessings."  Most of the time, of course, I include my family as one of those blessings.  But that's usually where it ends.  That covers it all, right?

I've had a sense this month, racing around underneath all my surface racing around, that I'm missing out on the important part of this season.  As I've read Makinzee's blog listing things she's grateful for, I've felt left out.  As I've seen other people daily post on their Facebook status about things they are grateful for, I've had a nudging that says I'm missing out.

And life continues at a crazy race at work and the calendar pages are swiftly flying away and in two days it will be Thanksgiving and there are so many things I'm trying to do and so many things not getting done and the whirlwind continues and continues and I just am not getting it.  It doesn't take time to have a grateful heart, but it does take time to allow the gratitude to come to the surface and radiate from the core of the soul. 

I won't post a list here, but on my way home from work last week, late again, I was listening to the Nightside Project on KSL.  They were reading text messages sent in under the title "First World Complaints."  Things like "I broke my manicured nail because..." or "My life is hard.  My bedroom TV needs to be replaced, so I'm stuck watching the big one at night."  You get the picture.  The purpose of the segment was to help us realize just how lucky we are here in the States.   The complaints were all so trivial, so incredibly trivial.  Of course, they were intended to be.  And I know there are people here in our communities who truly do have things of a huge nature they could complain about.  But on the most part, we are a very pampered, wealthy society.  Our First World life is a lavish one even in some of the most stark settings.

So I'm taking a minute this morning to pause.  To reflect.  And to allow the feeling of gratitude for blessings so numerous I am overwelmed, to flow up past all my racing around and come to the surface today.  And tomorrow.  And on Thanksgiving ...

The list is truly endless. 

And I am, once again, in debt forever to my Maker and to my Savior for everything.   Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  I hope you are able to find a minute to slow down and find joy in all you have been given in your own lives.  How can we ever question God's love for us when we are so surrounded with blessings?