Writing Myself into Gratitude

“Mom! Come quick! It’s a miracle!” 

I responded to my 4-year-old’s urgent summons to find her face to radiant face with a dogwood blossom right outside our front door. At first it seemed anti-climactic. Then I wondered what it would take to keep me as awake to delight as a 4-year-old child. One thing that has evolved out of that wondering is a writing discipline that daily reorients me to thanksgiving—my own peculiar form of gratitude journal. First I’ll tell you what I write, then how it evolved, and finally what effect it’s had.

What I write:

Overflowing with gratitude: (1) Coffee by Michael…. (8) Jesus died for me. (9) The Holy Spirit lives in me. (10) The Father deeply loves me and completely accepts me.

The intervening 6 items can be as specific as a gorgeous birdsong heard on my morning walk, a picture of a grandchild recently posted on Instagram, the smell of sun-dried sheets, a meaningful conversation in the hallway, a student’s epiphany in class, or a great line in the book I’m reading. (For the last 6 years a frequent weekend item is “blog posted”—sometimes with a sigh of relief at a task accomplished and sometimes with one of satisfaction at a vague idea wrestled into sentences and paragraphs.) The items can also be as general as sleep, health, peace, plenty, a roof over my head, the love of family and friends, rule of law, and meaningful work to do. Some days are just like that—when the specifics that dominate my mind are ones that spring from worry and stress, to still confess that my life is blessed in many ways is vital.

It started back when my children were small with a suggestion from my mom to write down 3 things a day I was grateful for. I can’t pinpoint when I added the introduction, though I seem to recall a conversation with a friend about a Bible study in Colossians where that phrase was significant. For me it has become a part of the ritual of reorienting myself to thanksgiving—however I feel at this moment, I do have many reasons in my life to be overflowing with thanksgiving, and I’m about to enumerate some of them. Neither can I remember the exact order in which the list grew from 3 to 5 to 10 as I added the anchoring 4 daily reminders of my husband’s first daily act of care, and of the Trinitarian resources of my spiritual life.

I do remember that the final 3 started as 1. I’d heard a PE teacher share how she combats girls’ poor self-concept by teaching them to look in the mirror and say, “I deeply love you and completely accept you.” I thought, “That sounds great, but what about the days when I just cannot do that? When I know I’ve thought, said, or done unlovely, unacceptable things?” Then it occurred to me that that is exactly where my Christian faith addresses the deepest needs of my heart—that even when I can’t love or accept myself, God has already done it, and I could confess that daily until it sank from my head into my heart. 

Eventually I realized I needed a daily reminder of the divine price of that truth—that Jesus had died for me. Then one day it dawned on me that it was less my spiritual tradition than my own practices that were obscuring my awareness of the work of the Holy Spirit. That’s when I added #9, frequently tagging on phrases about what the Holy Spirit was doing in my life: “The Holy Spirit lives in me to comfort me…to remind me…to guide me…to produce fruit…to unite me with others…” 

It’s been well over 20 years since that 4-year-old called me to witness the miracle of a dogwood blossom, and well over 15 years that I’ve been keeping some form of my gratitude journal. I’ve done it in the morning, I’ve done it in the evening, and I’ve done it in combination with a variety of other journaling forms—or without any. I still frequently fail to receive life as a daily series of miracles, and yet this small writing discipline has formed me, and for that, I am thankful.