Thankful for Thankfulness

This will be my first year participating in the "30 Days of Thankfulness" tradition on Facebook. I am starting a day late, having spent yesterday debating whether or not I would participate. This is no surprise to those of you who know how indecisive I am and how much I hate commitment.

But I decided to participate after all, for two reasons: first, I am going to try to use a lot of pictures instead of descriptions. I tend to get wordy with descriptions, and when I get wordy then I always self-edit, and when I know there will be editing involved I procrastinate, because I am a perfectionist.

Second, there are simply a lot of things for which I am truly thankful these days.

Gratefulness is not my heart's state as often as I would like. Too many times busy-ness makes me forget to feel grateful, or the routine of life makes me take good things for granted, or my inner, entitled ideal of what my life should be likes makes me focus on what I don't have and the little things going wrong, rather than the many things that are going well.

But over the last month, God has been working on my heart. I have been studying grace and growing in my appreciation for it, and I have been studying Jesus and growing in my love for Him. These are things I am grateful for, and somehow in the midst of them, God has been helping me to feel more thankful for a variety of things.

I have been feeling that inner peace and thankfulness that you can't fake or drum up. Prayer and reflection can lead to gratefulness, but with the two baby girls, I don't have as much time as I would like for those disciplines. I can't sit and read my Bible for an hour, and journal my way to gratefulness; many times, all I have is a few minutes to pray for my family and ask God both for gratefulness and to be reminded to pray throughout the day. Over the last month, God has been faithful to answer my prayers for a thankful heart. It's not natural to me, and it's not something I can earn. I still have many stressed, angry, irritable, ungrateful, entitled, selfish moments throughout the day, but the Holy Spirit keeps speaking truth to me, which gives me perspective and reminds me of God's goodness to me.

This grateful feeling is a gift from Him, and I am truly joyful that He is helping me see how much of a gift it is. So, for day one, I am thankful that God is making me thankful.