At the recent semi-annual worldwide conference of my Church, I heard several addresses regarding gratitude. One actually came out and said to “cultivate…an attitude of gratitude.”

It made me think about my life. I do not want to take anything for granted. How easy is it to forget about the small blessings in our life? How often do we neglect to tell those we care about most that we are grateful for the things they do for us? Our lives are so busy, we have so many things weighing on our shoulders, and we just…forget. Often, it is unintentional.

Yet how would it change a person’s life to know that they mattered to you?  And how would it affect your life if you spent some time doing as the old hymn says: “Count Your Many Blessings, name them one by one”?

I think hearts would turn. Lives would change.

Noticing the good things people do instead of always the negative would ripple out.

I spent several days pondering the conference addresses and my mind coming back to this thought of Cultivating an Attitude of Gratitude. I decided I wanted to work on it.  The perfect timing seemed so obvious to me. November, in America, is the time of year when we celebrate a holiday, Thanksgiving. THe name says it all.  What am I thankful for? So many things.

My initial thought was a simple one. Each day I could tweet/put on my Facebook status one thing for which I was grateful.  That seemed easy enough.  Then I mentioned it to a few friends and they liked the idea. And thus my idea blossomed. What if I wrote on my blog about this, and encouraged everyone to do this simple little thing?

How hard is it? One tweet is only 140 characters. It doesn’t even have to be anything life-changing. Sometimes it is the smallest of things that makes our day.  “I’m thankful that my kids didn’t fight today.” “I’m thankful I didn’t run out of milk.” “I’m grateful to have a job.” This isn’t a whole lot.  But imagine if you did it for 30 days straight?

Last year I did something like this. I told my husband each day something I was grateful for that he’d done. It was a nice little way to see the good in our marriage.  So you could theme your posts. Or not. Your choice.

Now imagine, if I do it. And then five of my friends start doing it. And five of their friend. And five of their friends. You get the idea. It could spread. A simple #gratitude thing, turns hearts toward the good in their lives.

From there it grew more. I could do this simple thing, but I could also theme blog entries about gratitude. A month of posts. I’m not sure that I could handle 30 posts geared towards gratitude, so I asked several friends to join me as guest bloggers. Several loved the idea, so I will share those on here.  (If you are interested in guest blogging, just comment and let me know!)

I thought I could also encourage a weekly theme/post for your own blogs, journals, Facebook notes, or whatever.

Are you game? Want to play the gratitude game with me?

Here’s the plan:

1. Every day, just recognize something you are grateful for. Mention it in your prayers, post it to twitter (use #gratitude so we can find it!) or your Facebook, tell someone, or write it in your journal. Whatever it is that YOU do.

2. Encourage others to do this very thing. Your mom, your kid, your cousin in Toledo.

3. Watch for my Attitude of Gratitude blog posts. If not every day, then most days of the week.

4. Wednesday will be my Wordless Wednesday and a theme for you to “blog  hop”.  Each Wednesday I will post a photograph and give you a theme to think about.  From there you can do what you want. Write a blog entry, put in your journal, post a photograph, or keep it simple with a status update. You are the boss.  However, you can leave your link to whatever it is you do, and everyone can share with you.

5. On Saturdays I will do a weekly roundup of interesting things that people post. Of course this is purely subjective to my whim. Maybe it is just something I relate to, or maybe it’s just funny, or maybe it’s super cool! So come and see if you get mentioned!  Where possible, I will attempt to link back!

I look forward to improving my attitude and myself by working on this over the next 30 days. Won’t you join me?

Comment below to let us all know if you will join in the fun.  Consider it a month-long “blog party”!

Today, I’m grateful for the wonders of the internet which will allow me to see what other people are thankful for.  This will help me to learn and grow and remember things that I should also be grateful for!!!

–Lady O

P.S. Feel free to use the buttons below to share this post on Facebook and Twitter to let other people know about this and that you are taking part!

P.P.S I’m looking for guest bloggers. Contact me if you are interested!