18 Elul: Gratitude

Give thanks to the God of heaven, for His kindness is eternal. - Tehillim (Psalm) Chapter 136

I am grateful for my son.

I am grateful for my amazing supportive husband. 

I am grateful for the community that has opened their hearts to us.

I am grateful for the house within walking distance to the Shul.

I am grateful for kind neighbours.

I am grateful for kind neighbours who gives my son hand-me-downs.

I am grateful for the Subaru car that drives amazing in any weather. 

I am grateful that on December 31, 2006, I did not die.  

I am grateful that we have a relationship with my parents again.  

I am grateful to the amazing Twitter friends who have been my support crew in rough times.  

I am grateful for the technology we have that allows us to learn and communicate in ways never seen before.  

I am grateful for french fries, pizza, ice cream and chocolate.  

I am grateful for the PJ Library books that come every month.  

I am grateful for how calm I feel after writing a list of things for which I am grateful.  

What are you grateful for today?  

Gratitude

I know that I am grateful for all that is in my life.  Some days I guess I guess I have less than the fully warm and fuzzy feeling around gratitude.

I get sucked in  let myself get pulled in by the negative emotions around a given moment.  Frustration, tension...I feel my shoulders tense up, my negative internal voice kicks in, "this shouldn't be happening."

I once learned the way to get out of this pattern is to change the thought pattern.  Think of something positive and the cycle will be broken.  I started to interrupt my moments of frustration to verbalize my gratitude for all the gifts in my life.  I haven't done that in a while, and I really should start up again.

When I do prayers with my son at bed time, we start with the Shemah, then we spend time asking G-d for the things we want and for the friends who need help (most of this is my right now, but my son hear's my voice and will learn in time).  At the end of prayer time, I spend time with my son thanking G-d.  We thank Him for all that we have in our lives, and we thank Him for the little things too, someone holding the door open for us, or the new recipe I found online.

I know, no matter how badly I felt the day went, at night time, I will spend that time with my son, speaking words of gratitude.

An amazing thing happens, in those moments, I truly feel G-d's presence, like He's listening in on us.  It's exactly like my son's book The Goodnight Sh'ma we received from PJlibrary:

I say the Shemah and I feel G-d's Light Shining on me all through the night.  

How do you express your gratitude?  Do you keep a gratitude journal (I have one of those too!)? Do you express it daily, weekly?