25 Keys to Unlock Scripture

Earlier this year, I walked my students through an activity on gratitude. It was a class meeting — a time when my home base class talks openly about school-, team- and just sixth grader-related issues spanning from bullying to Instagram and from family to popularity — and, though often the students plan and lead the meetings, I was feeling a need to focus the class on gratitude.

Gratitude, to sixth graders, is one of those things that we usually only talk about around Thanksgiving. And maybe Secretary’s Day.

But that day, in January, we chatted about what gratitude is and how much it can make a difference.

We watched this video (I had to trim it around the cursing in the middle) and I think it drives home a slightly different message — perhaps one that my students (and I!) hadn’t thought about much before: gratitude is a mutually-beneficial act!

Watch the video by to see what I mean:

After watching the experiment, of course we had to try it out for ourselves. My students each wrote a letter to someone who had impacted their lives in a big way. Part two of the experiment — expressing that gratitude in person — was fully up to the students.

Today, on this slightly overcast, wet and Spring-smelling Sunday morning, I’m feeling compelled to share a bit of gratitude here for things I am extremely thankful for. Things in my life that bring me life and happiness and moments of clarity. Things that make me blessed beyond belief.

Here are the things on the top of my mind. I’d love for your to add a comment and join in the gratitude fest on this wonderful Sunday!

1. Two of my beautiful best friends. 

I got to spend time with best friends Nikki and Alyssa last night and I feel so lucky to have them here in my city. Being with them makes me realize that I have matured in my view on friendships. The older I get, the more I want to surround myself with people who are amazing and loving. I don’t need people close to me that are negative and mean. I used to care about what those people though, but honestly, who has time for that? So glad I’ve narrowed my focus and chosen to be around people with such vibrance and life.

2. My pastor’s sermons.

Rarely before Cole and I found our church have sermon words moved me like ours do. It’s like my pastor is speaking to me directly week after week. Today’s was about fear and self-doubt and just having faith (cough, cough, Thomas) and it couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. This past week was a bit rough for me mentally for numerous reasons and I just needed this gentle reminder of having faith in a worry-filled mind. Good lookin’ out, God!

3. The app

Speaking of feeling mentally weak, here is a new toy I am extremely grateful for lately. I wanted to start meditating after I heard about it so many times on my favorite health podcast. I started two weeks ago and although I skipped a few days last week I am ready to get back on track. With the app, you can get ten free days of meditation, then it’s super expensive. So I’m planning on doing the ten days again (if that’s possible) or trying a new app. You don’t even know the benefits of meditation before you try it. It’s an incredibly powerful way to take care of your mental health, if I do say so myself. For these reasons, it makes my gratitude list!

4. My family.

Not sure if these guys would ever not make the list. Talking to one of my sisters or parents just brightens my day so much. I am forever grateful for the sunshiny-ness they all bring to my life.

5. My students.

Going into my last six weeks (!!) of school, I am thinking a lot about my hundred sixth graders that will soon be moving on up to seventh grade. Even though these turds drive me insane, I am grateful today for the amount of life — good stuff, bad stuff, dramatic stuff, frustrating stuff, hilarious stuff — that they give me each day. Since my students take up so much of my brain space anyways, I thought it would only be fitting to thank them as well. They — every last one of them — deserve it wholly.

Some of the things on my list today are things I am always grateful for — friends, family, faith — and others are things weighing especially heavy on my mind and heart today. I think that’s what is important about gratitude: expressing it as much as possible to big things, little things, and things in between.

Will you join me by adding a comment and expressing your own gratitude toward something big or little?

Have a wonderful week, everyone!