Thankful For A Thousand Little Things by Sabrina Calhoun

“Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”- Charles Dickens.

Right now, I consider my life challenging, so I call this season that I am going through a “through season.” I define that as a season you don’t want to stay in but get through as fast as possible. In this season, I was starting to focus on what I did not like about my life, and it was causing me sadness and a bit of depression. I knew the key to getting out of that low spot was to be thankful. But as I tried, I was only thinking of big things, and I was repeating the same things over and over, not getting the desired results.

Then, I was impressed by the Holy Spirit to just focus on the thousand little things that were all around me that I took for granted. So, I thanked God for the creation of good tires and windows that rolled down with the push of a button. I thanked him for the variety of trees he created that made the landscape in front of me beautiful. I thanked him for the soft blowing wind on that beautiful fall day. And for seasons, especially Fall. As I continued, peace and a deep joy began to rise in me as I started noticing all the little things. It worked!

Since I am a researcher by nature, I decided to look up the scientifically proven benefits of being thankful and grateful.

In doing research, I found from many sources that there are several proven benefits of gratefulness. Here are four:

1. It makes us healthier by increasing sleep time and quality,  decreasing pain, increasing time spent exercising, lowers blood pressure and increases energy.
2. It helps us have more positive emotions which in turn decreases stress.
3. Helps us to create a glass half full mentality making us more positive.
4. It helps us not to be so self centered.

Another big thing that I noticed in my journey is that being thankful has decreased the amount of dread I felt daily – which is a form of fear.  Through being grateful, I can see how God has gone before me to prepare good things for me today, which has enforced the truth that He has already gone before me in my future to make life beautiful.

“Let them praise the Lord for his great love and for the wonderful things he has done for them.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭107:21‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Sabrina Calhoun is a mother of three children from Central Texas. She is a graduate of Embracing His Grace Bible School out of Fort Worth, TX. Sabrina has been a restaurant and catering manager and an event coordinator who loves team building. She is a writer of curriculum and loves writing to encourage others.