Home is for Gratitude
A year ago I hung up a half-sheet of posterboard in our dining room with some double-sided tape and a marker nearby. I had decided that unsettling pandemic times needed communal thanksgiving in order for us to stay encouraged and to keep our focus on the Good. When the board got full, I removed and kept it as a time capsule of sorts, something I can stash away and look at one day as a small piece of our family history. After listening to this podcast on my walk yesterday, I realized that as we head back into some “normalcy”, I want to hang another poster up, a visual that magnifies all the good of this past year. How did the pandemic change us for good? What were the unexpected gifts? Where did we see God delight us, provide for us, and show us more about Himself?
Gratitude is part of my home’s DNA. We each share around the dinner table what we are grateful for that day. I believe it has helped my children recognize the gifts of life that we often take for granted. One of my sons regularly says “air conditioning” during the long, hot summer months. When my daughter worked as a camp counselor last summer, she had her campers and peers share gratitudes around the table. And if I am honest, focusing on thanksgiving at the dinner table keeps our conversation focused and from devolving into foolishness. When you put eight people around a table, you never know what will be said!
The culture beckons us to complain about people, to buy our way out of discontent, to compare with other lifestyles. Much of the online content we consume is designed to fuel discontent so that we purchase more. Writers, creators, and entrepreneurs market to what they believe our felt needs are and design products hoping to fill that space. Home is the space that we can push back and create spaces of contentment that are fueled by thanksgiving. Gratitude doesn’t completely heal all those heart-holes, but it certainly helps.
Being off of social media since Ash Wednesday has made my mind calmer, but more than that, I have greater contentment in my life. When I have taken social media fasts during Lent in the past, I quickly noticed how much clearer my mind felt and how my creativity reemerged. This time, I have noticed deeper contentment in God, with myself, my home, and my lifestyle. I don’t feel the itch to spend money as I did. I feel more grateful for the already-given, and not aching for the don’t-have. This shows me that guarding my mind against too many influencers reaps settledness, slower living, and joy and gratitude for the now.
So I’m off to hang new posterboard.
Thankful for your being an audience for my thoughts,
Aimee