What an odd year to write about thankfulness, right? And yet, that’s just what I ended up doing. God, in His wisdom, gave me a writing project with the Million Praying Moms group to write a 20-day prayer journal on ThanksLiving.
Isn’t that just like God to find a way when there seems like no way? Just as we realized 2020 might indeed drag on forever, God gave me a job to do. And not just any job, but a book-writing job! One of my life-long dreams. Coming true in just a couple months?! God was so gracious to me.
But then, that topic. Thankfulness. Wow. Not only was it not Thanksgiving, but what is there to be thankful for in 2020? Turns out God wanted me to challenge my ideas about gratitude and not put it in a box to be trotted out with the turkey.
So, back in August I wrote this prayer journal centered around ThanksLIVING. Yes, that’s intentionally not “Thanksgiving.” Because even when we’re having a bad day (or year), even when things don’t go our way, or we have fears. Even when… even here… even in this… we can be thankful. We can live with thankful hearts.
For the Christian, there is good news: We have something to be thankful for no matter what the world around us is experiencing! Here are a few thoughts that inspired this journal:
Awaken to Opportunity
Be not weary in well-doing. I’m tired. You’re tired. It’s been a loooong year. But we have this truth: that God is good, and the Giver of good gifts.
So let us awaken to the riches of His goodness. Every day we have another opportunity to awaken a heart of gratitude, to BE thankful, to LIVE thankful. That’s ThanksLiving.⠀
Give a Life of Thanks
We love making gratitude trees and writing down things we’re thankful for. But at some point, it became more of a “dutiful list” for me and not especially heartfelt. I knew I had to get back to the heart of thanksgiving which is a daily OFFERING of praise. Not an itemized list. (Still gonna do fun crafts with the kids for Thanksgiving though! haha nothing wrong with that! Just had to get my heart refocused!)
Know God is Good
No matter what. God is still good. He has been good. He will be good. And He has and always will be with us. ⠀
Hold to these truths today, my friend. ⠀
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“And be ye thankful.”
Do the Hard Things – With God, Through Him
“We can do hard things.” My boys and I recite this daily as part of our Charlotte Mason Affirmations.
As a mom, I’m always trying to share reason and logic with my children, so they learn to weigh difficult choices and understand cause and effect. However, not every decision we make for them as parents allows for a lesson in logic. Sometimes I have to ask them to TRUST me on this one.
The other night, our son prayed: “Thank you for good parents who do what is best for us.” (And I was like WOW, until I realized he was reading the prayer prompt in our devotional book! LOL.) Still, it’s good for our kids to know we love them so very much that they can trust our decisions.
Shouldn’t we be like that with God? Shouldn’t we THANK Him that we can trust His plan and path for our life? Even when it’s a hard circumstance and we don’t see the outcome: Trust Him.
Let’s start this month with a prayer. Let’s just trust God on this one. Let’s Thank God in Advance because we can RELY on Him through difficult circumstances. We can do hard things – because we know we have a good God who gives us strength.
So let us awaken to the opportunity to give thanks.
Let us give a life of thanks as our sacrifice of praise.
Let us hold to the truth of God’s goodness.
And let us trust God through the hard things.
Get the Everyday Prayers for ThanksLiving Journal
Use this prayer journal for your quiet time to spend 20 days with verses, prayers, reflections and study passages around who God is, what He has done. God taught me so much about the true nature of experiencing and offering Him thanks through writing this and I pray it will bless you as you read/study.
- Get your copy of Everyday Prayers for ThanksLiving prayer journal in my Shop
- Or purchase directly from the Praying Mom Shop (they have loads of resources to encourage your faith!):
May God bless you as you “Continue in prayer…with Thanksgiving.” Colossians 4:2.
