katHi everyone! It’s been almost two months since I posted anything! I hope you all didn’t forget me. Let’s catch up!
I’ve been spending lots of time singing in the last two months! At my church, we had a ‘giving glory to God’ event at the end of the month to offer all our thanksgiving to God, so I spent October preparing for that.
I also joined the worship team at my church! So October was filled with practices, and my youtube was riddled with tons of singing warm-up and technique videos.
I also started experiencing emotional difficulties I couldn’t quite put into words, and every time I tried to write a blog post, I didn’t feel inspired. The words didn’t flow out of me like they usually do.
I started to worry, but I decided to pray, and day by day, I realized there were issues in my heart I needed to heal from, things I needed to reflect upon and get done before the year ended. I didn’t really realize all of this until recently. I tried to write blogs about the lows I was experiencing and offer valuable solutions for you all. But how could I offer an answer I didn’t have?
It wasn’t until November that I decided to stop trying to force myself to continue to be productive when it was unhealthy for me, to stop saying yes to everything, and to open my heart to others about the difficulties I was experiencing-especially with God. It can get exhausting trying to be perfect the way the world wants us to be; if anything, we should strive to be perfect in God’s eyes. It’s difficult because, as my mom told me the other day, I become very devoted to whatever I put my heart and mind to. Putting a halt on things is the smartest I could do to avoid burnout.
So I rested this month of November, and even now, I’m trying to slow down and focus on prayer so that I can end the year strongly, deeply embedded in God’s word and prayer. I realized the proper mentality when difficulties and tribulations come encompassed in this phrase from my pastor: “You must welcome and receive the difficulty. Let’s not let difficulties happen to us or come upon us. Instead, let us receive the difficulty and solve it!” We have to receive difficulties with open arms. Let’s be honest; in life, we will always have problems, so what’s the use of being ungrateful and dealing with them with a terrible attitude? Let’s build a robust defense mechanism for difficulties, so they bounce right off us! Let’s overcome them with God’s strength and power so we can raise our capacity to handle more. Let’s be thankful for what the difficulties can teach and help us achieve.
This month of October, I also led a writing workshop at my church, where we scrapbooked in the theme of Thanksgiving!
I want to share with you all the things I learned as I researched the origins of Thanksgiving, the value of gratitude, and Thanksgiving in connection to the art of writing.
I won’t share much about the history of Thanksgiving. I also won’t deny America’s history of colonization, brutal genocide, and abuse of Native Americans.
However, I found two things quite interesting while reading an article on history.com (History.com’ History of Thanksgiving’).
Did you know days of Thanksgiving were officially proclaimed by two U.S. presidents? Thanksgiving wasn’t just a holiday that popped out of nowhere but began to spread across America as a tradition initially familiar to Native Americans. Many other cultures and nations also celebrated days of Thanksgiving, such as the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. From the time the pilgrims adopted and began celebrating their own days of Thanksgiving, this tradition gradually began spreading. At the start, states self-proclaimed days of Thanksgiving on different days.
As shared in the article I read, in “1789, George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation by the national government of the United States; in it, he called upon Americans to express their gratitude for the happy conclusion to the country’s war of independence and the successful ratification of the U.S. Constitution.”
In 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, urged on by female writer Sarah Joseph Hale who wrote the book’ Mary Had a Little Lamb’ proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each final Thursday of November. “Lincoln, at the height of the Civil War made a proclamation entreating all Americans to ask God to ‘commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife’ and to ‘heal the wounds of the nation.'”
Isn’t it interesting that George Washington proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving after the American Revolutionary War and Lincoln proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving, making it an official holiday in America amid the Civil War? In our lives, too, during spiritual battles and the difficulties we should also proclaim thanksgiving all the more.
Perhaps our thanksgivings have sometimes been accompanied by sadness and grief. Still, through difficulties, we become even more grateful and realize the value of all we hold dear to us, the beauty of everything we experience in this world and time.
According to Google, gratitude is the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.
And according to this blog post by Life Insight, “The practice of gratitude includes acknowledging the source of that goodness and expressing appreciation for it, maybe even to “pay it forward” by either returning it or sharing it with others.
Practicing acts of gratitude has surprising benefits on mental and physical health.” (Life Insight’ 3 Acts of Gratitude’) It’s essential to take time to express your thanksgiving! It can’t just live in your heart! You have to say it, and it’s healthy for you!
But what does the act of gratitude have to do with writing? Everything. From an article by Sloan Tanen from the Poets and Writers website, “A book dedication is a proclamation, right up front, with which an author can honor a person, a small group of people, even a thing.” A book is a proclamation of thanksgiving; the words writers share can be thanks to the moments and people they love or have experienced. It’s why most books have an acknowledgments page.
Before you go, take a moment to read a few thanksgiving related quotes from these historical figures:
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”–Ralph Waldo Emerson
“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”–G.K. Chesterton
“In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.”–Elizabeth Gilbert
I would add something to this quote and say, “Maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity that is a gift from God and say thank you forever and sincerely to the Holy Trinity….” God is the source of all good things in this world, even as he works through people. We should always acknowledge the Trinity and Jesus Christ even as we show others love and appreciation.
“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.”–Meister Eckhart (I like this one; it speaks to the power of thanksgiving)
“…for love casts out fear, and gratitude can conquer pride.”–Louisa May Alcott
“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relatives.”–Oscar Wilde
A good friend once told me, “it can all be resolved with a carne asada.”
“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”–Albert Schweitzer
For homework, I urge you all to list everything you are grateful for, whatever comes to mind, even if it’s from a day ago to as far as 20 years ago.
Typically, we are only thankful for the things we remember asking for. We fail to acknowledge every moment in our lives where God has granted our wishes and loved us deeply, with care for every inch of our beings. God’s heart of love is constantly going out to us, but how much do we feel it in our daily lives? In this life, we experience so much it’s easy to forget all God’s done, but let’s spend a few minutes today remembering.
