Grasping Gratitude
On Nurturing New Gratitude and Cultivating Contentment in Every Season + A 30-Day Gratitude Challenge
A few posts back, I shared that I’ve always struggled with the present. Rather than relishing the present, I’ve always pressed for the future and its promises, because I felt as if the present had nothing to offer.
So many prayers unanswered.
So many promises unfulfilled.
So many problems unsolved.
Who would want to stay in this place? I felt like the people in these Instagram reels hoping to bypass the messy middle by singing, “Let’s skip to the good part!” only to look around and realize with chagrin that they haven’t moved. Nothing has changed. They are still there.
The truth is I was discontent. Discontent with my portion. Discontent with my season. Discontent with my present circumstances. With every unfavorable circumstance, I steeped even deeper into disillusionment. Soaking myself with disappointment and discontentment, I started to despair, and before I knew it, I found bitterness brewing strong ingratitude within my heart.
When I would sit down to journal and see a gratitude prompt, I would blankly stare at the page and think, I’ve got nothing. Outside the basics (life, health, food, water, shelter, clothing, family, etc.), what do I have to be grateful for when everything seems like it’s falling apart and nothing is going my way? I deserve more. Don’t I?
Author Diana Bass expounds on this sentiment in her book, Grateful.
“ … as a society, we are being driven by the opposite impulse, the sense of powerlessness that comes from thinking we will never have what we deserve or want: “We are held captive by dissatisfaction.” This is the gratitude gap: we may be thankful in private, but individual gratefulness does not appear to make much a difference in our larger common life.”
78% of Americans claim that they feel a strong sense of gratitude weekly. Still, rather than truly experiencing real gratitude, could it be that, like me and Diana, they struggle to practice and sustain thanksgiving in a way that truly depicts a grateful and fruitful life?
Like Diana, I believe that there is a gratitude gap between what we believe and what we practice, largely because so much of our gratitude is limited to what benefits ourselves. This is the plague of what Diana calls “cheap gratitude.”
“Our understanding of thanks is polluted by our toxic dissatisfactions as we praise God for material possessions instead of the good gifts of nature and neighbor. Much of what passes for gratitude today appears to be a sort of secular prosperity gospel. If we just say “Thank you, thank you, thank you” long enough and with the greatest sincerity, we will be healthy and wealthy. This form of gratitude acts as a magical mantra, the key to unlocking personal spiritual peace and well-being. If we feel just good enough, with enough money and success, life will be a blessing. Or maybe not. Maybe we want just a bit more. A bit more blessing. What could be wrong with that?”
We’ve diluted gratitude, limiting it to the extent of what benefits ourselves, and in doing so, we’ve transformed the beautiful gifts that God has given us into the burdensome.
And that’s how I felt about life. Everything was burdensome. Nothing was beautiful. I was so busy highlighting the bad that I struggled to see the good, and because I struggled to see the good, joy and gratitude always felt out of reach. The Lord had to rid me of myself to see His goodness, experience gratitude, and find true joy. Much of that process looked like me learning how to love and accept the portion He has given me by guarding my eyes and heart (limiting my time on social media) and savoring the moments the present offered me (stopping what I was doing to admire the kids and watch them play, noticing the subtle ways in which healing was taking place in my body, cherishing the hug from my husband). These were all simple and small opportunities for me to cultivate contentment, nurture new gratitude, and pursue peace and presence.
I want to be more grateful. I want to know gratitude more deeply. And I know you do too, but to do so, this can’t just be a seasonal or holiday tradition. It has to be a daily discipline, a daily practice.
I brought a gratitude journal1 around Mother’s Day that I’ve only touched a handful of times. Lately, the Lord has been leading me to pick back up to chase down contentment, joy, and gratitude within these pages. As a nightcap, before I start reading, I drink my tea and write three things I’m grateful for along with a memory that I want to cherish for the day. While I’ve been pretty consistent at documenting these gratitudes the last few weeks, I don’t want this just to be a casualty in my life, I want it to be a consistent practice.
So over the next 30 days, I am committing to faithfully getting after grateful every day, and I’m inviting you to do the same. To practice more life-giving forms of thanksgiving and gratitude, every day in November, I will be sharing in our community chat three things that I’m grateful for, and today is the kickoff!
Let’s establish an intentional and consistent gratitude practice together. It’s free to participate, however, you do need to download the Substack app so you can receive chat notifications.
I believe we can know gratitude more deeply. I believe we can close this gratitude gap if we’re willing to look beyond ourselves to see the good and get after grateful in every moment and season. Let’s get after it.
For Further Encouragement
A few years back, I wrote a series on gratitude and thanksgiving. In this series, I dove deeper into how we can cultivate an attitude of abundance, gratitude, and contentment. In addition to these posts, I created a free accompanying lifestyle guide called Get After Grateful. This lifestyle guide features both tips and coaching questions that walk you through cultivating a gratitude practice. You can view the posts and download the free guide below.
📚 Books to Cultivate Gratitude, Joy, & Thanksgiving
If you want to dive even deeper into gratitude, I’ve found these books to be equally insightful, encouraging, and convicting.
Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks by Diana Butler Bass. In Grateful, author Diana Butler Bass unravels our struggle with gratitude and thanksgiving, using research and a fresh theological perspective that helps you cultivate a grounded and renewed gratitude practice.
One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. How do we see the good and remain grateful when drowning in disappointment, disillusionment, and anxiety? Suffering from agoraphobia and anxiety, Ann Voskamp learned how to fight for gratitude and joy when her friend dared her to pen a list of a thousand blessings, discovering that it is possible to, in everything, give thanks.
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