{"id":448,"date":"2015-11-03T12:29:38","date_gmt":"2015-11-03T12:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/?p=448"},"modified":"2015-11-03T12:29:38","modified_gmt":"2015-11-03T12:29:38","slug":"an-exercise-in-thanksgiving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/?p=448","title":{"rendered":"An exercise in thanksgiving"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, I read Ann Voskamp’s book, One Thousand Gifts<\/em>.<\/a> \u00a0It was such a beautiful reminder to be intentionally grateful. \u00a0As a family, we were experiencing a season of grumbling and I thought it would be a good idea to incorporate some thankfulness into our lives.<\/p>\n

So I made a poster.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a>I incorporated words from the book. \u00a0I wrote Eucharisteo, which\u00a0means Thanksgiving in Greek, on the top.\u00a0 I wrote the words\u00a0grace and joy, eucharisteo’s root words,\u00a0on either side\u00a0and Thanksgiving on the bottom. \u00a0I hung the poster on the wall next to our dining table with some markers. \u00a0Each night before anyone could eat, we had to write down something for which we were thankful.<\/p>\n

At first, there was some groaning.\u00a0 The kids weren’t sure\u00a0what to write.\u00a0\u00a0I told them the goal was not to make it too elaborate or complicated;\u00a0it could be those little blessings that are easily overlooked.\u00a0 The wonderful thing is, over time, it became easier to think of things as we all began to look for blessings\u00a0throughout the day.\u00a0 We became intentional.<\/p>\n

And we experienced a change in our house.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Our conversations at dinner consisted of sharing all the great things that happened throughout the day.\u00a0 There was less complaining, more gratitude, and more joy.\u00a0\u00a0It was wonderful.<\/p>\n

We did it for one month, but I left the poster up for a couple of years. \u00a0It was a great reminder of all our blessings and gifts from God.\u00a0 Blessings that might have otherwise been forgotten.<\/p>\n

When I got it out today, it was fun to read the things we wrote down. \u00a0A friend’s laugh.\u00a0 Rain during football practice. Our dog.\u00a0\u00a0Cake batter.\u00a0\u00a0Whistling.\u00a0\u00a0Dad coming home.\u00a0 Friends and family. \u00a0It made me smile.<\/p>\n

And again I was reminded of all\u00a0our gifts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, I read Ann Voskamp’s book, One Thousand Gifts. \u00a0It was such a beautiful reminder to be intentionally grateful. \u00a0As a family, we were experiencing a season of grumbling and I thought it would be a good … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=448"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":458,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions\/458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}