Gratefulness isn’t something that comes naturally to us. Because of our innate selfishness, we tend to complain and grumble more than we should. In our household, gratefulness is something that we all want to cultivate in our lives. But it does take constant practice and reminder.
Here is what we do in our household to cultivate a culture of thankfulness:
Remind each other. When we hear each other complaining or grumbling, we immediately remind each other that the will of God for us is to be thankful. We also put up signs in the house to remind each one to be thankful in all circumstances. We read the Word of God together and encourage one another to be grateful.
This is the hand-lettering painting Kyla did on our kitchen wall near the stairs to remind everyone to be grateful in all circumstances.
Do activities that will intentionally align our hearts to be grateful. We challenged each other to write something we are grateful for everyday in our journals for 21 days. There were days that the children didn’t know what to write – but it was a good exercise to realize that there is ALWAYS something we can be thankful for each day. We also did the Blessings Jar where we write the blessings we received and put them in a jar and read them every Christmas day.
This is a sample page from Toby’s gratefulness list.
Read stories that inspire gratefulness. From the Bible to fictional books, we try to find people who chose to be grateful whatever their circumstances where. We read their stories and try our best to be thankful in our own lives.
Some stories that we have read are Pollyanna and Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.
We need to be intentional in practicing gratefulness in our lives, for this is the will of God for us.