The Leper's Thanksgiving

I took the dare, accepted the challenge, kept track of one thousand things, one thousand gifts — a thousand graces.... Before I knew it, thankfulness to God began fully to change me.

What I actually found — startling! — was more daily wonder and surprising beauty than I ever expected.  And in a few short years, this daily hunt for God's grace, his glory, had ushered me into a fuller life.  A life of joy!...

I decided to try to live this giving thanks as I believe Jesus did each day, regardless of his circumstances.  And what I found was that in giving thanks for each moment and savoring it as bread from his hand, I'd find sustenance and the grace of God himself in it...

Even when I am sometimes impatient or unwilling, when I face conflict and heartache, I've begun to accept that even the impossible is a possible opportunity to thank God, to experience the goodness and grace of the Giver of all!

There is always only more grace.

And it's always more than I expect.

And you?  You in the midst you in the mire, are you too thinking about counting one thousand gifts, about making your life all about joy in Christ about loving God and enjoying him forever?  There is so much joy in seeing how he uses our simple act of noticing the blessings he bestows all around us to transform our lives and the lives of those we touch....

Praise him for the unexpected and the unlikely, for the daily and the difficult and the graces in disguise. The more you count, the more gifts you will see. Do not disdain the small. The moments add up, and we might come to believe it — the whole earth is full of his glory!...

Whatever you do, the practice is intended to be a way of cultivating a habit, of learning to live praise, to make gratitude and joy your default, to move thanksgiving away from a holiday to a lifestyle — that all the days might be holy and set apart for real joy....

God is waiting to reveal so much through your desire to know him more deeply and completely.