Gratitude

Did you know gratitude is good for you on so many levels! It is good for our emotional, social, spiritual, physical, financial, and work health. So what is gratitude? It's not a blind denial of the things that aren't going well in our lives. It's not a resignation that this is as good as it's gonna get, so we should just accept our lot in life. Gratitude is a practice (not a feeling) of recognizing the amazing things that we have, we are, or we experience. It is looking and seeing the many ways we are blessed -- sometimes despite our challenges. The very practice of gratitude changes our chemistry, our attitudes, and our health. 

Here's a great article I found that spells out The 31 Benefits of Gratitude You Didn’t Know About: How Gratitude Can Change Your Life. Enjoy!

Narrative Lectionary Text: Philippians 1:3-11

I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that on the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.