Gratitude

Like most of you, I've been thinking a lot about gratitude this week. In June, when I was still teaching the Young Women at church, we had a lesson on being grateful. It included a challenge to keep a gratitude journal. It's not a new idea. I've heard of them before and thought they sounded great, but had never actually tried one myself.

I decided to accept the challenge. I got a cute little notebook and kept it on my night stand. Each night I would jot down a sentence or two about what I was grateful for. I'm not a good daily journal keeper, but since it only took a minute, I found that I could keep up with it. It even made the cross-country trek with me this summer. I've written in it every night except for two weeks when I misplaced it.

As I read through some of the entries last night, I was uplifted. I have so much to be thankful for. The process was especially helpful on bad days. Days when I just felt like having a pity party. I forced myself to write down at least one thing that I could be grateful for. And it helped. Tremendously.

The resounding themes of the past six months were family, friends, the gospel, and food. Sounds about right. I found myself reading about them over and over. I hope I tell all of you how much I appreciate you and I don't just keep it secretly in my little journal.

One of the more touching entries, something I don't want to forget:

June 17, 2009 I'm grateful to have a roof over my head. Tonight I talked with an acquaintance who has been living in a homeless shelter for the past few weeks. When I asked her how she was doing, she said, "Well, I'm alive and I'm not in pain, so that's a blessing." What an amazing attitude! So grateful for her example.

Here are some of the more random things I recorded.

I AM GRATEFUL FOR:

*Sunday afternoon naps

*Access to dental care

*The internet

*Long phone conversations

*Fireflies

*My van


*Baseball

*Date nights

*Museums

*Nights spent around a table playing games with loved ones

*Air conditioning

*BYU

*Cell phones

*Joe, the Autozone employee who installed my new battery

*Our garden

*Tall trees that shade us on morning walks

*Book club

*Fantasy football

*Personal prayer

*Music

*Washing machine & dryer

*Sand

*Retail therapy

*Grapefruit

*So You Think You Can Dance

*Hot tub

*Legos