The Mighty Gratitude
Gratitude.
What practice could be better? Could hold more weight? Contain more impact? Produce more return on investment?
My instagram name is Heart That's Light.
I changed my Instagram name at a time when it would have made more sense for me to use my actual name - that way people could refer to it to find my work. For me, “HEART THAT'S LIGHT” was a strong reminder to me of who I am, who I’ve always been, & during I needed that strong reminder!
The reminder I needed with “HEART THAT'S LIGHT” is that I am a person who deeply in my core believes I can live with a light heart no matter what. A heart that is light from exercising gratitude. I am not one to believe the hard parts of life need to leave a mark FOR life.
I don’t wake with a light heart every day.
I don’t always maintain a light heart when something seems to fly by out of no where.
But one thing I believe consistently is that I can infuse any day at any point in any circumstance with gratitude. The day, then, gets turned around.
For some reason there is this impression in our culture - that the more years you gain, the more weight you gain. I’m referring to the weight of cares.
If I have a care, more than not it is this: When I’ve let something get very tangled in my mind.
A lack of control over my thought life when I don’t even realize it. A thought blows in and if left unchecked can, whew-wee, cause some trouble.
Unchecked and entertained, those thoughts can breed illusionary fears, go on to breed anxious thoughts, which breed urgency, which breed confusion and hiding. That’s what I mean by tangled. And if left for even longer, the tangle gets bigger. It leaves you desperately grasping for solutions that will never come because you're looking for solutions for problems that aren’t truly there. The tangle seeps from the mind, into the heart, comes out in the actions, and ends up wearing out the body.
Wanna know what I come back to - every dang time -to break that pile of fear-based cares?
Exercising gratitude. (And realizing most of the thoughts aren’t even true. And then exercising extreme gratitude about that too.)
Isn’t that so wonderfully simple?
Sometimes it is the very simple simple things that don’t shout for our attention that are the best to keep close. Cares shout, don’t they? Gratitude almost gets written off as simple-minded. It comes off as quiet, but wrapped around what we are grateful for -big and small- it is a mighty tool for maintaining and guarding a light heart.
Gratitude takes our thoughts off of things that if planted and entertained can rob us. The things that steal our focus, turn off our love, send us into hiding, or put our fists up in defense. The things that twist our minds with confusion and paired with what seems no solutions because we end up unknowingly dealing with illusions.
Gratitude helps us keep our feet on a path where the fear that produces that kind of fruit just cannot flourish. Gratitude starves fears. Gratitude is an action of love for all the things around us, the people, the experiences, the provisions, the things hoped for, the simple things even.
The parable of the sower in Matthew 13-- there’s a part that talks about seeds a farmer sowed that fell amongst thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Later in the chapter it goes on to explain the parable. It says in Matthew 13:22 “The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word making it unfruitful.”
There is a goodness from God's word that when planted in our hearts stands to bear good fruit and an abundance of it. Cares can choke it from producing fruit.
I personally can’t afford to have cares. I want to experience all the fruitfulness of that goodness of God’s heart in his word for me and for others. Gratitude acts as a guard against cares, and a might tool for breaking down the ones that have already grown.
In a future journal post, I will put together some ways I practice Gratitude.
I’d love to hear some ways you do as well.