One Word At A Time: Gratutude

By Ginny (MAD21)

Fall is my favorite season. Not that I want to offend the other seasons, because there are a lot of things to be thankful for during all of them (like SNOW!). But there is just so much about fall that I love: the smell; the colors; swearshirt weather; playing in the leaves; hiking in dry, cool (but not cold) weather; Operation Christmas Child; homemade applesauce with apples straight from the tree; going letterboxing; hayrides at the farm with my kids; fall festivals... I could go on and on but I think you get the idea.

In preparation for this post I wanted to review my list of things I was thankful for last year. And honestly a year later all of the things on that list are still the things I'm most thankful for, only I'm a year more passionate about them. I'll pause here so you can go back to read it to review.... We good? Ok.

I may live in Maryland, but I am thankful that Idaho will always be my home.

Click to read more ...

An Attitude of Gratitude

By Chuck (Sharing Compassion)

I must admit that sometimes I have a problem with gratitude. Often I am so consumed by the hustle and bustle of everyday life and so wrapped up in my trivial problems that I really fail to thank God for those things that I should be truly thankful for. I thought about this over the weekend and decided to make this the topic of my article. I think God was putting this on my heart with two incidents that occurred during this time period.  I had a Compassion Team meeting at my house on Saturday and several members of my team had just returned from Tanzania and had stories to share. I also started thinking about my negativity and how often my prayers are about those trivial things. I pray that the pain in my knee might be better, I pray that I might have a good sales day at work, I even pray that God will make the humidity go away. I mean really....here is God looking down on all of us and sees all the suffering that is going on through out the world and I am literally taking his time with these types of prayers. Get real! I must admit that I am really not as shallow as I am making my self sound. My prayers are often more substantial and do offer praises but how many times do we just throw those types of prayers up to Him and ask for something that really is not that important. Our attitude is too often one of wishing rather than thanking.

Click to read more ...

Gratitude

 By Megan (Steps for Brady)

When I was little my mom forced me to write thank you cards to anyone who gave me a gift. I remember struggling to stretch my thoughts beyond a basic “thank you for the new sweater, I like it a lot.” Now that I’m an adult, I’m truly thankful for my mother’s lessons in gratitude. I know that I always feel good when I receive a heartfelt thank you, or a kindly written note in the mail.  And I try whole-heartedly to send a note of gratitude to anyone who acts kindly upon our family.

In recent months our family has had to swallow our pride and raise our hands to accept hundreds of gifts from our family and friends. Now that the dust has settled after my son’s illness, we were at a loss for how to properly thank all of those who cared enough to reach out of us in our time of crisis. The idea for a BIG party was something that came to us in the midst of our son’s battle with cancer. I recall myself saying to my husband during several long days at the hospital, “When Brady beats this, we are going to have the BIGGEST party ever!” The idea of this grand celebration gave us the “something to look forward to” that we were both in desperate need of.

Click to read more ...