Cultivating a Life of Gratitude

I am committing myself, during 2010, to attempt to cultivate a greater awareness of how much I have to be thankful and grateful for by sharing my daily findings and musings with you. It is my hope that by blogging about gratitude, I will be more aware of what is going on around me in my life, my family, my friends' lives and our world.

February 9, 2010

Made to Praise

Thanks to Stefanie Johnson from PA, I had a BIG 'ah-ha' moment yesterday.  She sent me a link to this blog:
http://www.aholyexperience.com/2010/02/what-day-is-always-really-made-of.html

and I quickly stumbled across this:
http://www.aholyexperience.com/2003/06/gratitude-community.html

and it hit me.  I am in a place in my life where I am not actively leading other people in 'worship' in a church setting.  It is a very weird place for me to be but the above blog helped me understand something about myself.  After hearing sermons which challenged me to be more generous and to think about how generous God is, I felt like I had to find a way to respond.  I was having that "I need to be creative in some form or some way that acknowledges my Creator".  Without even really understanding myself, my response was creating a blog where I could 'give thanks'.  After reading the above blogs yesterday, I understand myself even more! :) So, although I may not be leading people musically or in an up front role, I hope I can in some small way encourage you to think about God's goodness and generosity.  As the author of the above blog said, "Giving thanks for a thousand graces has changed my life -- to glorify Him in all things! We were made to praise!"

While most of my life 'giving praise' has been done with my voice, with my hands through music, encouraging communities of people to join me; during this very different and sometimes difficult season of my life, I am praying I can learn even more about expressing praise in the every day moments - perhaps it will help me 'practice the presence of God' in an even more realistic way. 

So - thank you Stefanie, for sharing a blog with me which helped me to reach a deeper understanding of my desire to express myself through a blog.  I am grateful for "ah-hah" moments. 

1 comment:

  1. Emily, this made me smile. I am grateful that I followed through when God prompted me to send it to you. I ignore those prompts too often.

    As I said yesterday: Lead, leader! I'm looking forward to joining you in grateful worship.

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