November, The Month of Gratitude

I want to bring a different approach to you this month. You’ll see people on social media making a post, or posting a picture, every day for the month of November to represent something that they are thankful for. It’s a great tradition for this month. 

But….what if we did a spin on it. What if we could post situations that represent God’s faithfulness, and our thankfulness, for that? A specific challenge dedicated to documenting your gratitude and Thanksgiving towards God’s faithfulness and provision in your life? Hear me out for a minute.

It’s easy to sit down with pen and paper, and write down that we are thankful for our home, our family, our friends, our jobs, our cars,etc. 

Let me take you somewhere a little deeper. 

What if you were to think back as far as you can remember. Back to instances and circumstances were you were desperate for an answer. 

Desperate for a breakthrough. 

Desperate for direction from God. For him to provide a way or an answer or healing in a specific situation. 

Maybe it didn’t come right away, or maybe it did. We often tend to be so desperate before him, and then, when our prayer gets answered, we move past it and forget how faithful he was to us in our many different seasons of life.  

Most of us live in a mindset of wanting more. Whether it’s more money, more time freedom, status in our career or more out of our spouse.  

More vacations, more quiet time, more time to work out, more responsibilities in our workplace or more knowledge, etc. 

We walk that fine line of being content with where we are in the season that God has us in and the tugging and pulling of our ambitious spirits that want to thrive and grow and be better and do better.

How often do we ask God what he wants for us? How often do we thank him for what he has given and provided to us outside of the obvious things that initially come to mind?

I would love to challenge you for the month of November 2023, whatever day you decide to start this and whatever day you read this, to start writing in a gratitude journal or making gratitude posts of times in your life where God has shown up in your time of need. 

• What did that make possible for you?  

• Why today, are you are thankful for it? 

I’ll bet that all of the things that you would have naturally listed that you were thankful for will be included in this, but in a more specific way. 

I’ll give you a recent example:

My husband‘s truck is 10 years old. It’s paid off and we love that about it. But it’s slowly breaking down here and there. We’ve put money into it to fix it but things keep happening because it’s creeping up on 200,000 miles and they don’t run forever. With interest rates being what they are right now, the timing was bad for getting a different one. 

We have been praying for a solution. We also know that we have a teenager who’s going to need a truck within the next year and we were hoping to give him my husband‘s truck so that my husband could get a new one.

As the months went on, and things kept happening with it here and there we kept getting discouraged because we knew we weren’t going to be in a spot to get a different one anytime soon. Then, when my husband started his new job they gave him a work truck, which happened to be almost identically the specific truck that my husband had been praying for. He is able to use it for personal and professional use and they take care of all of the maintenance, gas, etc. Had we chosen to go before God and purchase the truck and justify it because we needed it, we would’ve missed the amazing blessing that he had right around the corner. I am thankful for God’s perfect timing.

By the way – it was really hard to choose which example to give you, because by the grace of God, I have so many examples of his faithfulness and goodness in my life. 

We often, especially this time of year, get caught up in the busyness, and forget to see the goodness happening in our lives. I know I’m guilty of it. But if I stop for even five minutes and focus on what God has done and is doing in my life, it changes everything about the way I experience my day and show up for my family and myself.

Are you up for the challenge?

Will you comment my name on your post if you were posting publicly so I can read it and support you and encourage you too?

Can’t wait to see all the different versions of hearts of Thanksgiving!

Love & Blessings,

Erica