Thanks for the Little Things

Another year has come and gone and we find ourselves, once again, facing the season of celebration, joy, and thanksgiving. It’s the time of year when we spend time with friends and family and thank God for all the blessings we have.

Why Give Thanks?

Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.

Psalm 107:8-9

Because God feeds us. He is working in our lives everyday to care for us and teach us. He is always there when our soul is hurting.

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever.

Psalm 136:1

Because His love never fails. No matter what we do, He will never stop loving us and He will always hold up His promises, regardless of our ability to keep ours.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into His presence with singing! Know that the Lord, He is God! It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise! Give thanks to Him; bless His name! For the Lord is good; His steadfast love endures forever, and His faithfulness to all generations.

Psalm 100:1-5

Because He is ALWAYS faithful. Even when it doesn’t look like He hears us, He is still working and He will never forsake us. Jesus gave up everything to come be a spotless sacrifice so He could call us HIS. And He will NEVER let go of us.

Always Something to be Thankful For

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Philippians 4:6

Even when we don’t have everything we want or as much as we want (or think we do), we can all find something to be thankful for. And, let’s face it, most of us really do get much more from our WANT wish list than we actually need. . .or even realize.

I think, if we really think about this list below, we can see something in every category to be thankful for each day of the year. . .even on our darkest day or most difficult season.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

It’s the Little Things

I have discovered that it is in the most difficult times, not in the times of pleasure and plenty, that I find myself the most thankful. The cliche “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone” isn’t so much a cliche as a trustworthy saying.

We take so much for granted. Things, or people, we have always had we have come to expect to be there always, forgetting that these things are not guaranteed. Sometimes we need to go through the difficult times, times of want, to see just how blessed we are and to truly understand the meaning of thankfulness.

Even the littlest things, when stripped away, become subjects of deep thankfulness and our perspectives on what this holiday is for is forever changed.

We don’t truly understand the blessing and the joy of being able to walk and run until that ability is taken away.

Going to work everyday doesn’t usually land on our thankfulness list until the day we can no longer clock in.

Even something as simple as the ability to hold a pen in strong fingers gets overlooked until the day you can no longer get your hands to work right.

Yet, even then, I discovered something to always be thankful for. They may have been small things, but each one was a blessing I could be thankful for from the bottom of my heart. Whether these things are taken from you for a short time, or for the rest of your time here on this earth, God will never neglect you. Sometimes His strength and provision is found, not in the earthquake we can easily identify, but in the still small voice we have to quiet down to hear.

It’s the little things. The little drops add up to create a puddle, and continue to grow until we can now see a river of blessings flowing through our life even in our most difficult times. And we can even be thankful for those trials and times of want. For, often times, they make us stronger and help mold us into someone better than we were before.

It is after the rain that the sky is bluer, and after the fire that the grass grows greener than before. So there is one more thing we can add to our thankfulness list this year!