“Give thanks with a grateful heart, give thanks to the Holy One, give thanks because God’s given Jesus Christ, God’s Son”

Friends, can you believe it is AUGUST?! Where has the time gone? A friend reflected that 2020 is both moving too slowly and too quickly. We are in a season we’d like to pass through, but we also can’t figure out where the time is going. I am grateful for the moments where I can slow down and give thanks for the gifts of each day, even in the midst of so much change.

If you don’t have the pleasure to be friends with Sue Lorens on facebook, I’ll let you in on a beautiful secret: Sue posts daily gratitude updates. It’s a wonderful spiritual practice I hope I can learn from. Every day, Sue highlights something she found to be grateful for, and she invites others to join her in noticing the gifts of the day. What a marvelous way of adding joy in the world.

I started making a list for myself, and here is the wonderful thing about gratitude. Once you plant it in your mind, just like the mustard seed it grows and grows, until it can sustain others (like the birds in the parable!). Gratitude, joy, and love are infectious. And in an era of pandemic, it is refreshing to be infected with something good.

For what do we give thanks today?