Thankfulness Is More Than Just A Season.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I am brimming with thankfulness.

As I write, brownies are baking in the oven, filling the entire house with the smell of dutch chocolate. The house is clean, and the laundry put away. Eric will be home from work soon, and we will spend the evening watching a movie snuggled in front of the fireplace. Tomorrow we will spend Thanksgiving with our family, stuffed to the brim with good food.

I have much to be thankful for.

Many of you can relate. Though you may know hardship, there is much to to be thankful for.

There is great importance in acknowledging our many blessings. It humbles us, and gives glory to the one from whom all blessings flow.

But I also want to know thankfulness in the less obvious sense. Thankfulness when all seems to be falling apart, thankfulness in the messiness of life, thankfulness when I am not getting my way.

That’s a different kind of thankfulness, one that must be practiced. Because thankfulness when we are surrounded by so many wonderful things, is, let’s be honest, kind of easy. But thankfulness in the midst of not-so-wonderful, stretches us.

I don’t just want to be thankful when it makes sense to be thankful; like when I am surrounded by people I love and stuffed full of turkey. I want to be thankful when it doesn’t make sense to be thankful. Like when anxiety is gripping my very soul and I just want to curl up in bed, I want to be thankful for a bed to curl up in and a God who hears my cries. And when our January heating bill comes and it’s almost as much as our mortgage, I want to be thankful for a home to heat.

I want to practice thankfulness in every moment. Not just tomorrow, or until after the Holidays are over, but in every single moment.

Because thankfulness is more than just one day where we acknowledge all that we have before going out and buying a bunch of stuff on sale. Thankfulness is a mindset, a choice, a lifestyle.

So much to be thankful for, both when it’s obvious, and when it is not.