Word for Word 11/6/24

November has arrived and that means Thanksgiving day is not far off. This is a great opportunity to focus on gratitude - to celebrate the many blessings you have.

When you’re feeling grateful, your mind is clear, you have a deeper relationship to God and the whole of Creation, and you become more aware of the big picture. The world becomes a friendly place to live. Couldn’t we all use that right about now?

Practicing gratitude shouldn’t be only for Thanksgiving Day. It takes effort to create the habit of gratitude but it’s worth it because there are many benefits. According to scientific research on gratitude, grateful people:
• have lower levels of stress and depression
• have a greater capacity for empathy
• are more generous and helpful
• have a tendency to see the interconnectedness of all life
• show increased commitment to others
• are less materialistic and judge others less based on materialism
• are more optimistic
• have higher levels of positive emotions and stronger mental health

Isn’t that incredible? Just by practicing gratitude, God can open your heart to receive blessings and multiply them. Wouldn’t you like that? Here are some ideas to cultivate more gratitude in your life.

Create thanksgiving rituals
Gratitude takes practice. “Practicing gratitude helps people extract the most out of life. People can also experience an overall shift to a more benevolent view of the world. I think it’s kind of a spiritual shift for some people because it makes them more aware of life as a gift,” says psychologist Dr. Robert Emmons of U.C. Davis.

What rituals might fit into your life? Perhaps you can take a few minutes when you wake up to thank God for the day and do so again before you go to sleep at night. Maybe you can form the habit of writing gratitude letters. I knew someone who wrote a note of gratitude to everyone on her Christmas list every year. Years later when she was dying, she had the peace of knowing she’d already told her beloved people how much she loved them.

Keep a gratitude journal
Dr. Michael McCullough of the University of Miami and Dr. Emmons have been conducting an ongoing Research Project on Gratitude and Thankfulness. They found that people who keep weekly gratitude journals feel better about their lives as a whole, and are more hopeful about the future in comparison with those who didn’t keep gratitude journals.

A gratitude journal is a notebook where you list the people, things, or experiences for which you are grateful. You can also use an app on your phone for this purpose. I have found this to be quite fun because you can also take pictures and add them to your gratitude entries. It only takes a few minutes a day to chart your moments of gratitude but over time, it shifts your thinking. You begin to look at everything through the lens of abundance.

Live generously
Another thing that increases gratitude is charitable giving. The things that you have are gifts from God. You do not own them, you merely steward them. When you realize this, it gives you the freedom to live generously. Jesus taught: “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21) I have found this to be true. The more I give, the more grateful I become. I’m less concerned about material resources and more able to focus on my true resource, which is the love of God. The best part of giving is that your generosity benefits others.

This Thanksgiving season, take time to work on your gratitude practice. If you’d like more inspiration, I recommend The Little Book of Gratitude by Dr. Robert A. Emmons. It’s exciting how gratitude sparks joy and flows through your life and out to heal the world.

Rev. Laura Gentry
Our Savior’s Lutheran Church
Lansing