by Sarah Francois | May 8, 2022 | Christian Living, Discovering Adulting, Uncategorized
Dear Reader,
Today I want to talk to you about having a gratitude practice. Nothing but breathing and your heart beating come automatically in this life; everything else takes practice.
Why Practice Gratitude?
I don’t know why… I could tell you the science, but somehow gratitude automatically elevates the mood, and takes the focus off of us and what we’re not doing and what we’ve been given. A lot of twelve-step programs, and many spiritual communities encourage their followers to engage in gratitude or gratitude-related practices daily.
When/How to Practice Gratitude?
One of my favorite things to do before I start my morning prayers is to just take stock of all I have and write in my gratitude list. In the past, I’ve had a gratitude text chain with friends where we just texted 3-5 things we were grateful for every single day. You don’t have to write in a gratitude journal every day or start a text chain to start a gratitude practice. You don’t even have to say it out loud (although I recommend it). You can just look around the room you’re in right now and silently acknowledge the blessings God has given you. You can sit in your car for a minute and thank God that you have a car, that you have the skill to drive, and that you have all the physical health and functioning to be able to drive. Those are all blessings. Before you eat lunch, thank God for the food and all the people who had a hand in making it. The people who farmed it, the people who processed it, and the people who shipped it all the way to you.
If you already do those things, another way to practice gratitude is to get involved in your community. Volunteer at the shelter or the food bank. Donate your time more than your money.
Benefits of Practicing Gratitude?
- It statistically makes people happier by over 10 percent than people who don’t practice it. Emmons & McCullough, 2003; Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005
- Increases self-esteem (Rash, Matsuba, & Prkachin, 2011)
- Improves symptoms related to work stress (Cheng, Tsui, & Lam, 2015).
- Helps you sleep (Jackowska, Brown, Ronaldson, & Steptoe, 2016)
- Increases your resilience (“A 2006 study published in Behavior Research and Therapy found that Vietnam War veterans with higher levels of gratitude experienced lower rates of post-traumatic stress disorder. A 2003 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that gratitude was a major contributor to resilience following the terrorist attacks on September 11.” quoted from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-mentally-strong-people-dont-do/201504/7-scientifically-proven-benefits-gratitude )
Go out there and enjoy the day! And remember to practice gratitude. Afterall, Practice makes perfect.
by Sarah Francois | May 7, 2022 | Uncategorized
This is about yesterday’s post on the practice of gratitude. I wanted to share with you the gratitude journal I use and the one I used before the current one.
And remember, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. The journal I use now:
The journal I used before:
They have short journal prompts and will take you about 5 minutes to fill out either before bed or in the morning when you wake up. Happy gratitude-ing!
by Sarah Francois | May 6, 2022 | Christian Living, Discovering Adulting
Dear Reader,
This month is going to be all about feel-good vibes. We’re gonna dive deep into how to live out gratitude. I may talk about some stories in the Bible, some biblical affirmations to help you speak truth to the darkness, or just talk about my birthday! That’s right May has my born day. I was born on a Saturday during the Sabbath, so it’s only natural that I spend my birth month giving thanks for what God has done and talking about rest and all that is good.
As we breathe
As you probably know, breath is something that we spend a lot of time talking about in church, and singing songs about in worship. Breath is often mentioned in scripture and it is a medical phenomenon that we still really don’t know a lot about in 2022. Breath is automatic, we don’t know what starts it or finishes it and just know that when it stops we need to make it to the ER ASAP.
In the bible, there are names for God based on the concept of breath. He is the Breath of Life. It is also believed that the name YHWH actually comes from the sound made when breathing. It is important to note that an automatic function that we have a lot of mystery about is attributed to God in such a deep way. That God is the start and finish of every breath.
Breathing In Gratitude
There are a few stories in the bible where I think to myself “ man what a crazy time to be grateful.” They come in the story of Jonah, Job, and Daniel.
Let’s start with Jonah. Jonah was in the belly of a whale after being swallowed up for his disobedience to God’s call/ to rescue him from drowning. In Jonah 2: 9, Jonah is within the belly of the whale when he says “But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!” I mean when you think about it one way, he had a reason to be grateful. He was alive. But the other half of the situation is he has no idea when and if he’s ever gonna leave the belly of the whale, or if he will leave alive after passing through the whale’s digestive track. And then right after Jonah’s expression of heartfelt gratitude, he gets vomited out and onto dry land. I mean what a crazy story.
Then there’s Job. He finds out all of his kids have gotten killed in one fell swoop while hanging out at their eldest siblings’ house and he thanks, God. He says naked I came into the world and naked I will go. It’s a crazy story.
Then there’s Daniel who was told not only not to praise God, but to definitely not do it in the window or he will be put to death. The verse says in the ESV version “When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.” Daniel went about his business with His God; he did not care.
While we can pass off these stories as man, that’s crazy. The real lesson they were so cray .. is that they were so tight with God and their relationship was so deep that they could be grateful, anyway, and on any day. The reason gratitude needs to be likened to breathing is so that it could be automatic. It needs to be automatic like Daniel, who didn’t need to think about the regulation that just passed, he just did his routine. He just walked daily with God and thanked him thrice a day and wasn’t going to stop for anyone.
What are the non-negotiables in your life? Do you not drink milk after brushing your teeth? Do you not turn on social media before noon? Do you have any spiritual non-negotiables? Like I won’t leave the house without praying, or start my car without talking to God? Let’s think about inviting God and gratitude into our lives more often, so that we may be able to suck the marrow out of life and live in the sunlight.
