In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”
I Thessalonians 5:18
Last week I wrote about gratitude and asked the question, What are you grateful for?
But I realized I needed to take my own medicine and think about all the things I’m grateful for. So this week’s post is a gratitude list. I’ve topped it off at 100, but it could go on an on. Most of them are the small, often-taken-for-granted things that we don’t even notice. During the week, I’ve been trying to reverse that approach to life and instead, to notice, appreciate, and be grateful for the minutia of things that make daily life run more smoothly.
There are some bigger, more significant things on the list as well, but I’m really trying to live in a constant state of gratitude, to look at life through the lens of gratitude at all the tiny, little things. And I must tell you right up front, doing this will change the way you see everyone and everything. Driving down the street, I see so many things to be thankful for. Every time I have voiced this gratitude, either verbally or silently to myself, a joy swells up inside me that wasn’t there before.
I invite you to try this way of seeing the world. Make your own list. You may think that 100 is way too many things to put on your list. So start with 10. We should all flood our days with gratitude. It will wash away the accumulated mud that the world constantly throws at us.
Here’s my list. There’s no particular order of importance.
100 Things I am Grateful for
- Beads of water on beet leaves after a rainstorm (see the picture above)
- Street signs
- Addresses on mailboxes and houses
- Lane makers on the highway
- Harvesting the first tomato from my garden
- Telephone poles and wires
- Light bulbs
- Clean sheets on the bed
- Washer and dryer
- Kitchen cabinets
- Self-serve gas stations
- Check-out folks at the grocery store
- Mirrors, especially rear view mirrors in cars
- Pencils and pens
- Trash cans
- Filing cabinets
- Being able to recycle all my plastics, cans, paper, and cardboard
- Fresh raspberries from the garden
- Having tea with friends on Saturday morning
- My wife’s art all over our house
- Clean socks
- Gardening gloves and boots
- Door knobs
- Ink cartridges for my printer
- Bible concordance
- All my Bible translations
- New hymns at church
- The smile on my wife’s face when she prepares a nice meal
- All the amazing meals my wife cooks
- Shovels and rakes
- Birds chirping early in the morning
- Turn signals on cars and those who use them
- Keys
- Scissors
- Silverware
- My sister and brother, my wife’s two sisters, and all their families and the blessing they have been to our family
- The Farmers’ Market on Saturday mornings
- My lawnmower, which mulches the grass so I don’t have to bag the clippings
- Staples and staplers
- Scotch tape
- Thermostats
- Air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter
- Refrigerator
- My compost pile and all the compost it makes for my garden
- The nearby hardware store that has just the right “thingy” every time to solve my problem
- Cheerful, courteous, solution-oriented customer service people
- The Post Office and mail carrier
- My mother-in-law’s 60 year old sewing machine that still works perfectly
- Irons and ironing boards, my own and the ones is hotel rooms
- Playing Cribbage with my wife after dinner
- Playing cards and board games with my grown children when they’re home
- Children who call home just to talk
- The conference call feature on my cell phone so my wife and I can talk to everyone at the same time
- Newly paved streets and highways
- Flush toilets
- Early morning and late afternoon sun that makes long shadows on the grass and lights up the sides of trees
- The men and women who come to my Bible Study at the nearby Federal Correctional Institution
- Stoplights
- Police directing traffic and protecting our neighborhoods
- Running water and sewer service
- Hinges and locks on doors
- Stain glass windows
- Charge cords for phones and electronic devices
- A newly weeded flowerbed
- Window seats on airplanes
- Colored markers
- Erasers
- Delete and restore functions on computers
- Knowing how to read and write
- My writers’ support/critique group (I’m working on a book about how to pray)
- Scholarships and financial aid for college tuition
- Getting the bills paid
- Shower curtains
- The sound of wind blowing through the leaves
- Stamps and enevelopes
- Bank deposit slips
- ATM machines
- Cloth napkins (most of them don’t need to be ironed if I fold them right after they come out of the dryer)
- The corner china cabinet in the dining room with special family treasures
- Sunlight hitting the prism hanging in the window and making dozens of little rainbows
- Tulips around our flagpole in the spring
- The weeping cherry tree in our front yard in full bloom
- Sleeping in my own bed after a vacation
- The 5 gallon glass jug in the living room half-full of pennies. Since before we were married, my wife says a prayer every time she adds a full copper penny (minted before 1982) that she finds in circulation. That’s a lot of prayers.
- Refrigerator magnets with clever sayings or pictures of places we’ve been
- All the lessons I learned from my parents and grandparents
- Nail clippers
- All the tools in my tool box and kitchen junk drawer
- Sandpaper
- Toothbrushes
- Smell of new leather
- Sunsets reflected on the water
- Scheduling and planning my work week and achieving my goals
- Bright headlights for nighttime driving, and oncoming cars remembering to dim theirs
- My church family
- Family weddings and events, seeing everyone and catching up
- Reading in bed at night propped up with extra pillows with my wife next to me playing Words with Friends
- The timer and alarm on my cell phone
- Eating outside at the picnic table when the weather is nice.
- All of you, my readers
There you have it. Just a few of the things I’m grateful for. As you can see, most of them are just ordinary things. And if you read last week’s post about gratitude, you know that it’s not just being grateful for the things themselves, but the idea or concept behind them.
I encourage you to make your own gratitude list. You can do it all in one sitting or keep a running list and add things as you think of them. We all need to be grateful for what we have. It prepares our heart to receive more good into our lives. God is generous with His love and His blessings. Let us always give thanks for them, whether large or small.
And let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below.
Blessings,
James
