I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but I often get a lot out of children’s books and devotionals.
God usually speaks to me in the strangest of places (like while hanging out the washing or in the shower), or through the simplest of things, like this morning while listening to my husband read to the kids from a children’s devotional around the breakfast table. The story was all about a little girl grumbling because she had to go to school, make her bed—you know, tough things like that. Her mother explained to her about the art of thankfulness: In everything be thankful. Be thankful that she has the opportunity to go to school, thankful she owns a bed she can make . . .
It seems so very easy when someone else talks about it, but how often do we, as adults, need to be reminded of the simple art of thankfulness? Because it is a form of art, isn’t it? When it happens it’s a beautiful thing, but when it doesn’t the mind quickly turns into an ugly place, spilling ungratefulness from the mouth. And the world is no help, being only too eager to further stress the bursting dam of ungratefulness by passionately urging us to focus on what we don’t have. As a result it’s far too easy to become ungrateful even for what we do have, all the while dreaming (or quite possibly drooling) over the things we want.
Too often as a mother I find myself grumbling about the daily grind: hanging out the ton of washing every day, all the dishes piled up, the kid’s teeny-tiny toys (that I often step on by accident), the lack of time alone to even think or breathe without being interrupted . . . I’ll stop now before I really get started.
I regularly need to be reminded about thankfulness—that our family actually has clothes to be hung on the line, that we are blessed to own plates and cups to wash when many people in this world can only dream of having their own dishes. Even the simple fact of having children (and their painfully tiny toys) deserves undying thankfulness.
And here’s the wonderful thing: choosing thankfulness can transform an ordinary day into the most stunning piece of artistic beauty imaginable, and can drastically change your outlook on life. Learning to be satisfied is wonderful, but learning to be thankful to God is an amazing experience that I need to choose to live in more often.
We all do.
“Let all that I am praise the Lord;
may I never forget the good things he does for me.”
–Psalm 103:2, NLT
- Selfless (In My Own Selfish Way) by Daniel Tattersall
- Love Hopes For the Best by Kristy Drake
- When Happiness Eludes by Kristy Drake
- You Don’t Have To Live This Way by Kristy Drake
- Love by Kathryn McBeath
- Darkness Like A Flood by Kristy Drake
