Anchored in Gratitude

I’ve told a few close friends this already, but if I had to pick one word for my year, it would be grateful. Not because everything has been easy. In fact it’s been one of the more complicated years I’ve had in a while.

GoodFolks has felt like a roller coaster. A lot behind the scenes is still up in the air, but gratitude has become the anchor I keep coming back to—the thing that’s held me steady when everything else has wanted to pull me off course.

Most mornings I pray with two guys on my team, and the very first thing I start my prayer with when it’s my turn is simply “thank you.” It doesn’t sound like much, but those two simple words keep me from drifting. When I start my day anywhere else, my mind wanders into fear or scarcity before breakfast. Starting with gratitude anchors me before the waves hit, giving me something solid to hold onto when the rest of life tries to tug me in a dozen directions.

Lately I’ve been trying to pay attention to the little things I used to rush past. The way my girls laugh when they’re talking over each other at the dinner table. Slow mornings with my wife when no one is in a hurry. A good conversation with a friend that ends up meaning more than I expected. Even just walking outside and feeling the cold air hit my lungs. I don’t want to take those things for granted.

We’ve even started doing these little “gratitude walks” as a family on Sunday mornings. I know, it sounds a bit nerdy even as I write it. We don’t do it every week but it’s become this quiet way of paying attention together. Just walking the neighborhood, naming simple things we’re thankful for. And honestly, listening to my girls has taught me more than anything. Their little lists crack me open. They're filled to the brim with things like butterflies, no school, the earth (whatever that means). Things so simple I’d never think to thank God for them… and yet they’re somehow truer than half the grown-up things I reach for.

It’s funny because I used to think gratitude meant noticing the good instead of the hard. But this year (especially through those walks with my girls) I’m realizing it’s noticing the good inside the hard. Seeing God’s nearness in places I would’ve normally labeled stressful or disappointing. The simple things have a way of cutting through all the noise.

Now, heading into Thanksgiving, I’m trying to stay rooted in that spirit. Not as a performance. Just as a way of staying awake to God in my actual life — in my real circumstances, real stresses, real joys.

This year hasn’t been simple, but today, I’m choosing to be thankful.

If your year has felt bumpy or heavy or confusing, I hope you find small moments of gratitude that hold you steady too. Sometimes those tiny moments are the ones that save us.