Courageously Grateful

“You’ll have bad times, but it’ll always wake you up to the good stuff you weren’t paying attention to.”

~ Sean (Robin Williams) from “Good Will Hunting”

As you know, this school year we have been journeying through the devotional resource, “Called to the Classroom: Daily Reflections for Educators.” Every Monday, I’ve shared an excerpt from the book as our reflection for that day. If you are following along in the book with me, you’ll notice that today we are beginning Part 3 of the book: I Am Courageous. As I read the first reflection in this section, I thought about our focus on gratitude in the month of November. And I realized that sometimes it takes quite a bit of courage to be grateful, especially when we are in a difficult season of life.

Gratitude can be vulnerable. We are identifying people, places, or things that we hold dear and, in the process, we might be recognizing they could slip away. As a surface-level example, yesterday I asked my sister, who is a teacher, how her full-moon, first day back from break was with her students. She replied, “It was way better than I expected! Why does that make me so worried about tomorrow?” We both shared some laughter about her comment. But perhaps all of us can relate to this: feeling thankful, only to wonder when the other shoe will drop or if we are even worthy of this blessing in the first place. That’s why I think gratitude takes some courage at times. So today, I invite you to join me in bold thankfulness by expressing your appreciation to others, yourself, and the world around you. 

Day #28: Share a movie you are thankful for and why.