Gratitude For Today, Even More For Tomorrow

​Today is Thanksgiving. The holiday designed to encourage us to pause and feel and express gratitude for all we have. Why not, research strongly supports the power of gratitude in our lives.

At the risk of interrupting your day of gratitude for all you have today, though, I'd like to suggest another way of using gratitude. For me one that becomes more important to my own life and mental health every day. And that is expressing gratitude for the life that is coming my way; using gratitude to predict my future.

It's relatively easy to express gratitude for what one has, but how can one possibly express gratitude for that which has not yet come one's way?

For me, that's an easy answer.

I've experienced some challenges in my life. Some of them quite large. Which gives me something in common with so many of you reading this. But here's what all of those challenges in my past have in common; I wouldn't change any of them. Every one of them has served as the foundation of something stronger or better or both in my life.

So where many people's gratitude lists start with material blessings, friends and family, beautiful experiences - all very worthy of any gratitude list - my list starts with what many would consider comparatively less fitting gratitude entries.

Things others would want erased but I wouldn't change for anything.

I won't erase. Nothing. Because there is nothing I am more grateful for today than who I am: a beautiful child of God. And that beauty, like that of Noah and Adam and Paul and Sarah and Luke, has been built on the foundation of trials and tragedies and turmoil. And so how can I be exceedingly grateful for who I am and not start my gratitude list with where I've been?

The heaven AND the hell.

And more, how can I be so very grateful for everywhere I have been and not predict, with great confidence and gratitude, I will be equally grateful for all to come?

No matter where I am today, what I am experiencing or going through, how can I not look through that peephole to the future and not feel gratitude?

Wouldn't I be foolish to not use the gratitude that has sustained me to predict a future that will show up with even more sustenance?

I am so grateful for all I have this day. I am grateful for every day that delivered me here. And more importantly than both, I am grateful for what every moment in front of me is waiting to offer.

I have no idea what those moments are holding, but when you can confidently predict you will be grateful for them it really doesn't matter what they are holding, does it?

If you are reading this, please know how grateful I am for you this day. Writing to you is one of the most meaningful ways I have to express gratitude for each day behind me. To make wisdom out of those days - the good and the bad and the ugly - in a way that I hope helps you find more peace and gratitude in your own days.

Happy Thanksgiving to each of you.

With so much love.