Cultivating a Heart of Thanksgiving This Year
Cultivating the habit of thankfulfulness is one of the most powerful tools you can build to fight against the discontented and self-focused culture that we live in, and in this month, as we prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday, what better time to start? I have found the more often I focus on the disappointments and areas that are lacking around me, the most susceptible my soul is to depression, discouragement, and believing the lies of the enemy that God doesn’t love me or care for me.
Discontentment is a deadly enemy. God hates it. Throughout the Israelites wilderness years, we see the Israelites complain again and again, and we see how God rewards such complaining…plague, pestilence, death, and destruction.
William Farley, in his excellent book, The Secret of Spiritual Joy, says, “God even said that their [Israelites] complaining was an act of despising him (Numbers 14:11)…The truth is that grumbling, complaining, and self-pity are rampant and violent statements of unbelief. They are opposite of godward gratitude. They reject the gospel. They reject the reality of my sinfulness. They say, ‘I deserve only good things from God.’ They deny my absolute dependence on God. They deny his sovereignty and his goodness - essential aspects of deity. And they are guaranteed to leave me a far weaker, far less effective, and far less joyful Christian.”
William Farley goes on to say, “Thanksgiving is the language of humility - because true gratitude arises from a realization of our weakness and need. People with grateful hearts live with an awareness of just how much God has done for them.”
What a powerful challenge for us.
1. Number your thanks one by one.
Ann Voskamp called us to this habit years ago in her book, One Thousand Gifts. She challenged readers to literally start numbering those gifts you observe all around you and come up with a thousand beautiful gifts and watch to see if your life isn’t changed in the counting. I personally did this for many years and found it truly life changing. I stopped for awhile now and it is time to pick up this habit again this year and do it alongside my children. During our morning devotion time, we are each individually writing down a few things we are thankful for in our personal journals and then sharing them out loud with each other.
My thankfulness journal - numbering them one by one!
“To bring the sacrifice of thanksgiving means to sacrifice our understanding of what is beneficial and thank God for everything because He is benevolent…We give thanks to God not because of how we feel but because of who He is…It’s counting the ways He loves, this is what multiplies joy.” - Ann Voskamp
2. Read a few Thanksgiving picture books.
I love reading picture books just as much as my children, and there are a wealth of wonderful books available to us that help draw our attention to the beauty of thankfulness. A simple message of thanksgiving can speak volumes to our souls in the simple text of a book. I love adding a new book to our collection each year. Here are a few of our favorites:
A Very Thankful Prayer by Bonnie Jensen
God Gave Us Thankful Hearts by Lisa Tawn Bergren
Sharing the Bread by Pat Miller
Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wendy and Harry Devlin
This is the Feast by Diane Shore
Bear Says Thanks by Karma Wilson
Give Thanks to the Lord by Karma Wilson
Thankful by Eileen Spinelli
3. Write thank you cards.
Make a point to sit down to write a list of those people in your life that you could write a simple note of thanks and encouragement to this month. Teachers, leaders in the church, neighbors, grandparents, parents, siblings, etc. Pick up a stash of cards from your local Dollar Tree. Make it a family challenge. Notes of thankfulness could cover all your writing, cursive, and copywork practice this month. :) We are even having a competition to see who can write the most thank you cards this month for a special prize. A little note can go a long way to bless someone.
A basket of Dollar Tree thank you notes to fill out throughout our day
4. Make a thankfulness tree.
As you gather around the table as a family, start your conversation by expressing things you are thankful for and write them on leaves to be hung on branches at your table. For many years, we have made a thankfulness tree, that included writing our thanks on leaf printables that included Scripture references about thanksgiving. We laminated them and hung them year after year with new gifts. This year, we will be using a chalkboard that hangs in our dining room for this purpose. It will be our family collection of God’s good gifts to us as we reflect back on this year.
“The holy grail of joy is not in some exotic location or some emotional mountain peak experience. The joy wonder could be here! Here, in the messy, piercing ache of now, joy might be — unbelievably- possible! The only place we need to see before we die is this place of seeing God, here and now.” - Ann Voskamp
“Over time, choosing gratitude means choosing joy.” - Nancy Leigh Demoss
This chalkboard was $10 at Home Depot and serves as our Bucket List throughout the seasons, and for November it is serving as our Thankfulness List.
5. Read a book on Gratitude.
Please pick up a copy of either Secret of Spiritual Joy, Choosing Gratitude, or One Thousand Gifts, and see God transform your heart into one that is amazed again at the beauty of our Savior and how much we can rejoice in His goodness! It is time well spent.
For more fun picture books ideas:
Favorite Thanksgiving Picture Books
