Choose gratitude
You have so much to be thankful
Having an attitude of gratitude is a mindset, a choice individuals make every day.
Our tendency is just the opposite: complaining, grumbling, and selfishness.
Yet, gratitude–or a spirit of thankfulness–defines people when life gets hard.
The Mayo Clinic reported nearly two years ago:
Expressing gratitude is associated with a host of mental and physical benefits. Studies have shown that feeling thankful can improve sleep, mood and immunity. Gratitude can decrease depression, anxiety, difficulties with chronic pain and risk of disease.
. . . Your brain is designed to problem-solve rather than appreciate. You often must override this design to reap the benefits of gratitude.
Starting this 2024 Thanksgiving-Christmas holiday season, it’s important to reflect, maintain perspective, and help people consider the things we take for granted and the things with which we obsess, some of us more than others.
After all, 1 Chronicles 16:34 (ESV) reads, “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.” Also, James 1:17 (ESV) reminds us, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
Jeremiah wrote in Lamentations 3:22-23 (ESV): “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
At the end of each day, human beings get much needed rest and sleep. God made us need rest. Yet, we also wake up each morning. Your blood circulates through your body, oxygen flows through your lungs, everything necessary to be alive for a new day.
We take many things for granted that are a part of our lives. God takes care of it–all of it. Yes, His mercies are new every morning.
Consider what Johns Hopkins Medicine reported on its website about the science and importance of sleep from Dr. Mark. Wu:
If you have ever felt foggy after a poor night’s sleep, it won’t surprise you that sleep significantly impacts brain function. First, a healthy amount of sleep is vital for ‘brain plasticity,’ or the brain’s ability to adapt to input. If we sleep too little, we become unable to process what we’ve learned during the day and we have more trouble remembering it in the future. Researchers also believe that sleep may promote the removal of waste products from brain cells—something that seems to occur less efficiently when the brain is awake.
Sleep is vital to the rest of the body too. When people don’t get enough sleep, their health risks rise. Symptoms of depression, seizures, high blood pressure and migraines worsen. Immunity is compromised, increasing the likelihood of illness and infection. . . .
However, once you’re awake there are countless other things we take for granted that demand a mindset of thankfulness: You can:
See and hear family and friends.
Get hugs from family and friends.
See a sunrise, sunset, moon and other astronomical events.
Walk, talk, see, hear, smell, taste, and touch.
Appreciate the roof over your head, food on your table, and clothes on your back.
Appreciate your job to pay the bills and do things you enjoy.
Appreciate the daily safety to destinations in traffic, even with weather conditions.
Appreciate every day when your health has some level of strength and stability.
The opportunities to see daily blessings are around you, if you stop to account for them. They’re difficult to see in the moment because we don’t think that way. We move from one event to another, never accounting for what just occurred to allow the series of events to happen. These events demand an attitude of gratitude.
Meanwhile, there are life events that scream for a hyperfocus on what is happening: divorce, death, job loss, an accident that causes serious injury, a medical diagnosis, and others. Even in the hard times, we give thanks as 1 Peter 4:12-13 (ESV) states:
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.
There are other matters that cause us to obsess, and some far more than others. No other event revealed this like election 2024, complete with two assassination attempts on Donald Trump who had dozens of court appearances and convictions–even on dubious charges. The candidate of the other party, incumbent President Joe Biden, was replaced with his vice president, Kamala Harris.
It created an election like no other, but it also generated post-election reactions filled with anything but thanksgiving.
Some Americans have gone to TikTok, Instagram, or X with profanity-laced tirades after Donald Trump’s election to a non-consecutive term. Similarly, several Wisconsin women went to the shores of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee on Nov. 9 to “primal scream,” or “release our pain.”
What they need is a healthy dose of perspective and thankfulness. A slight shift in mindset would help this group of Americans realize the election of Trump is not the end of the American constitutional republic. There will be more elections. Their rights will not be taken away.
They will look back on their actions at some point and realize how silly their behavior was in 2024.
A nice start for them would be heaping doses of thankfulness.
