Gratitude Is Not Just One Day

 

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

Once a year, the people in the United States pause for a holiday called Thanksgiving. It’s a wonderful time to celebrate with family and friends. Depending on the year, we travel to these gatherings and plan for special food and even individual traditions of expressing gratitude. Through the years, I've always loved the celebration of Thanksgiving. In recent days I’ve read a number of articles tied to this holiday. 

 

In this article, I want to take a different twist on gratitude. I contend gratitude needs to fill our writing life much more than once a day. In fact, I encourage you to incorporate thankfulness or gratitude into your every day life. Here’s some starter ideas for you to bring gratitude into your daily life:

1. Write in a Gratitude Journal. Some writers have been keeping a daily journal since they were young. I’m not one of those people. In fact, for years I resisted the idea of writing my thoughts into a journal. Through the years, I’ve had the opportunity to occasionally go to the Book Expo and wander through their exhibits and pick up books. This event stopped for several years during the pandemic but is returning in 2026. At once of these events, I picked up a casebound, blank journal which caught my attention. Someone suggested writing a daily gratitude journal. I started to fill those blank pages and it has become a daily habit for years. In fact, I have a series of these gratitude journals. I encourage you to use a gratitude journal as a way to continually express your thankfulness.

2. By hand, write thank you notes. It’s rare that I receive a little thank you note in my mail. I've been writing these little notes for years. Often in my mail, I receive a print copy of a book. I pull out a note card and write a thank you to that person. My handwriting has grown poor so I print and even that is hard to read but the sentiment is certainly there with my card. It’s a practice I've been doing for years and learned from bestselling author Richard Foster who celebrated my first book when it was released in 1992. As writers, we can learn gratitude from others and incorporate it into our daily lives.

3. Use the chorus Give Thanks. Many years ago, I interviewed American singer and songwriter Don Moen. In 1986, Don wrote a little chorus called Give Thanks. Follow this link to listen on YouTube. I purchased this little song as a ringtone and have it on my phone. It’s another simple reminder and helps gratitude fill my daily life.

4. Avoid being ungrateful. I understand that Christians have been expecting the return of Jesus since he left thousands of years ago. Some people believe we are in the last days. 2 Timothy 3:2-5 includes a list of some horrible sins during this period. Tucked into the list is one word tied to this article: ungrateful. 

As Christian writers, it’s important for us to stand out and be different. Our continued gratitude is one of those ways. What am I missing and what actions are you taking to continually express gratitude? Let me know in the comments below.

Tweetable:

During this season of Thanksgiving, this prolific author and editor believes gratitude is not just one day. Get the details in this article. (ClickToTweet)

New Podcasts:

In these articles, I’ve encouraged you to use PodMatch or some similar tool to book and record podcasts. Last week one more podcast recording launched:

Mitch Carson (@MCarsonOfficial) and I spoke about The Truth About Publishing: Why Authors Must Market Their Own Books on The Amazing Authorities Podcast. Listen at: https://bit.ly/49sJyml 

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