The Practice of Simple Gratitude and Thanksgiving

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By Marvin Roane

With the Thanksgiving holiday just around the corner, I thought it would be fitting to share a brief reflection on gratitude and thanksgiving. For me, every day is THANKSGIVING! Expressing gratitude is first and foremost becoming thankful for my LIFE and HEALTH. I call these my Siamese twins. My daily practice is to express gratitude for these gifts daily, for what would your life be without your health and conversely what would your health be without your life? Think on this for a moment…

The simple practice of gratitude and thanksgiving only takes a few moments. A great time to practice gratitude is as soon as your eyes open or when you are invited back to consciousness from sleep. Begin your new day by simply saying, thinking or praying thank you for waking me up! Immediately after your initial offering of thanks, begin to become grateful for the ability to see, hear, touch, taste and smell. Then, become thankful for the ability to think, feel, to have balance, and that all of your organs and systems are functioning properly.

Many of us routinely take these gifts for granted, overlooking the gift and focusing more on work, money, relationships, and material things. The list of gifts – the things we take for granted – can go on and on. Here is my challenge: simply start your day, each day, with gratitude. Take a few moments to express gratitude for the things that you do have. Then compare the loss of your gift of life and health with a few of your perceived problems or material things listed above. With just a little reflection, the problems and issues of life become trivial and miniscule.

God has given me gifts in counseling and motivational ministry and because of this, I find the simple practice of gratitude and thanksgiving to be both humbling and effective. At the end of each day, before closing my eyes I am humbled by the thought of this one simple fact; practicing gratitude and thanksgiving was and is the very least I can do to show my gratitude for the many blessings given to me in a single day. It is my prayer that implementing this daily practice will have a similar effect on you and your life as well.