Mary A. Kassian - Growing Grateful: Live Happy, Peaceful, and Contented

Hey friend, Im so glad you picked up this book. I believe it contains the antidote for any anxiety, discontent, or frustration you may struggle with. When your gratefulness grows, your anxiety, discontent, and frustration will begin to shrink.

We all have areas or situations in our lives that dont make gratitude an easy attitude to have or choice to make, right? Illness. Loss. Rejection. Loneliness. Blindness.

Well, that last one is mine. I became blind as a fifteen-year-old girl because of a disease and now, decades later, Ive lived in darkness longer than I ever lived in light. So I know how hard gratefulness can be. Sometimes life is just plain hard, and we dont feel grateful one bit. Thats when gratitude is a sacrifice. It is a sacrifice we give to God, yet it is also a gift He gives to us.

The Lord says, The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God! (Psalm 50:23 ESV ).

Did you notice in that verse that being grateful to God is a sacrificethat it costs us something? Its not always easy. The verse tells us that if we want to live the right way (order our way rightly), then we need to do the hard and liberating work of growing in gratitude. Our gratitude shows off His goodness to a world that needs to see it. And when we grow in gratefulness, we grow closer to the Lord.

Honestly, if God hadnt helped me grow in gratefulness and given me the grace to offer Him my sacrifice of thanksgiving, I dont know how I would make it through one more day of blindness.

I dont want you to try to make it through one more day of anxiety, discontent, frustrationor whatever youre feelingwithout the gift of gratitude supporting you. I want you to grow in gratefulness and grow closer to the Lord along with it.

My friend, as your gratefulness grows, so will your capacity to perceive blessings, even when theyre shrouded in hardship. Thats why Im so thankful that my friend Mary wrote this book. Shes filled every page with solid, biblical reasons for you to offer up gratitude to God. Shell help you grow grateful in ways that glorify Him and bless you. Linger with the questions for meditation found at the end of each entry. Make each topic of gratitude your focus for the day. Gratitude has made all the difference in my life. And it will in your life too. You will become more happy, peaceful, and contented as you grow more grateful. So cozy up and get started.

Love,
Jennifer Rothschild

It is good to give thanks to the L ORD .

P SALM 92:1 ESV

Research reveals that being grateful comes with a crop of side benefits. People who are grateful are more hopeful, energetic, and positive, while being less envious, anxious, and depressed. Grateful people also tend to have more willpower and be more empathetic, compassionate, and helpfuland to have greater integrity and faith. Overall they feel significantly more optimistic and satisfied with life than those who fail to express gratitude.

In her book The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want, professor Sonja Lyubomirsky concludes that gratitude is a kind of meta-strategy for achieving happiness. Its the virtue that opens the door to all sorts of other good habits and feelings.

The fact that gratitude is the root of many other virtues would not come as a surprise to the psalmist in todays scripture. His expressions of thanks and praise were bountiful, so he undoubtedly experienced many of gratitudes benefits. He noted, It is goodthat is, right and enjoyableto give thanks. As we grow more grateful well see other beautiful things sprout up in our lives. As gratitude grows, our peace, contentment, and happiness will bloom too. Like the psalmist, well experience how very good it is to give thanks.

MEDITATION

Have you ever considered that gratitude is the parent of peace, contentment, and happiness? What do your levels of peace, contentment, and happiness indicate about your need to grow more grateful?

GROW GRATEFUL

Increase your happiness quotient by offering up some prayers of gratitude.

As the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord G OD will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.

I SAIAH 61:11 ESV

In my part of the world, winter lingers until the end of March or even longer. By then Im tired of the cold, white, lifeless landscape. I yearn for the prairie crocus. This member of the buttercup family is the first flower to burst through the snow and defy the monochromatic scenery. With vivid purple, yellow, and green, it heralds the coming of spring.