I don't have one yet--a Thankful Journal. I need to buy one--a journal that only thankful things are written in. Carol Tuttle's family--check her out on Amazon--has been keeping a November Thankful Journal for ages. Her family writes one thousand things they are thankful for, starting on November 1st and finishing by Thanksgiving. They have done it for so many years that a whole big journal is filled and they are starting on their second one. Their daughter, who is on a mission in one of those end-of-the-earth missions--some place like Lithuania or the Baltic something-or-other, really, the end of the earth--she wrote home and said she is starting her own thankful journal and is going to have one thousand things to be thankful for by Thanksgiving. I think some of her things might be, "I am thankful that I have a crust of bread today," or "I am thankful that I didn't freeze to death today." Actually I don't know what her situation is. She is thankful to be serving the Lord, that much I do know.
A few days ago a dear friend sent me an email called "What the World Eats." I was astounded. It showed families from different countries, told how much they spent on food a week and the family was shown with all the food products displayed. Some families had a gluttonous amount of food—the family spending the most spent $500 a week on food. A WEEK! Some had very little. The family spending the least spent $1.23 cents a week. Their pile of food was pitiful but I imagine both were thankful for what they had.
So, tonight, I'm going to put a few things I am thankful for.
1. I am thankful I live in a safe neighborhood.
2. I am thankful I am warm tonight--I just called time and temperature and it's 41 degrees and expected to be in the low 30's tonight.
3. I am thankful I have a clean comfortable bed.
4. I am thankful my husband got on the roof today and blew all the leaves out of the gutter. It looked like it was snowing autumn.
5. I am thankful I have a present--actually three--for my daughter that she will like for her birthday on Friday when she turns nineteen.
6. I am thankful I got an email from my daughter-in-law today.
7. I am thankful my daughter-in-law calls me occasionally to tend their four-year-old chatterbox.
8. I am thankful my visiting teachers came today. They love me. I even got a present and it's darling. A tiny wooden bowl, on a tiny wooden stand with a basket of flowers painted on the bowl. It looks so Thanksgivingish.
9. I am thankful I can blog
10. I am thankful I can read other people's blogs, they are so interesting and full of vitality and goodness. Some are so funny. How lucky I am to be able to read about all these people's interesting lives.
11. I am thankful I know I am a daughter of Heavenly Father.
12. I am thankful I was born to my angel mother--yes, she let me fret about the knick-knack shelve but she was such a perfect mother for me. I miss her more than I thought was possible.
13. I am thankful for Glide floss. What did people do before they could floss their teeth? Maybe that is why, when I was a kid, I thought old men smelled like sewers. They had decaying food in-between their teeth. Ick.
14. I am thankful I don't have to live through the teen-age years again.
15. I am thankful I know some people who are stinkers. And to know they don't belong to me. Well, they don't belong to me too much. We all belong to each other, really but I don't have to have Christmas dinner with them.
16. I am glad I don't smoke, drink or have an insatiable desire to be too good or too bad.
17. I am glad the dog next door doesn't belong to me.
18. I am glad my annoying cats are only two annoying cats and not three annoying cats. The other day Minkey made a pest of himself when my next-door neighbor was here--she does not like cats--and then the other cat, Pika, came in and hawked up a fur-ball, practically on her shoe. I about died. It was not funny.
19. I am thankful I can see.
20. I am thankful I can write. I'd like to be able to write better but I am what I am.
21. And I'm thankful for that too. I am what I am and it's good enough.
And with that I'll say goodnight and go upstairs to my wonderfully comfortable bed to sleep. Sweet sleep, which will be interrupted by Minkey, yowling in the hall, for who knows what reason.
22. I'm thankful Minkey's not twins.
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2 comments:
Keeping a gratitude journal is a great idea!!
Our family had a wonderful experience about a year and half ago. We had a friend who was dying of cancer. The family together with their pastor came up with the idea of 24 hours of praying for a month at the home. They would have a sign in front of the house that said "Jesus at Work". They asked friends of all religions to join them, at least two at a time. There was a praying area set up outside the house. While we were reluctant to be seen praying out in the open in public we decided to honor our friend's request. Mike , Evan and I signed up for an hour. We were thankful when we got there that area for prayer was kind of hidden mostly by bushes, and on a cul-de-sac so we didn't feel that conspicuous. How many people spend an hour in family prayer? We had never prayed that long before. We took turns and it was such a great experience. The vast majority of our prayer was in thanksgiving for all the many wonderful blessings we have. An hour of blessings!! Wow, it was very touching experience.
Thanks for sharing your list Lynn.
Great idea, Lynne. I think I'll start one too.
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