Happy Thanksgiving Week! (Slowing Brings Appreciation)

**Before you begin reading, sit down, breathe normally and be quiet for 1 minute.**

    Happy Thanksgiving All! Another slowing post and hoping that today you will find some time to slow down and appreciate all you have been blessed with.
    Slowing increases our awareness of the gifts we have in life. Slowing allows us to see our blessings and consider how we might give to others. Slowing increases our ability to see the sacrifices of others and appreciate their work. Slowing leads to appreciation, thankfulness and humility.
    Practice slowing today and look around you and thank God for the things He has given you. Look around and see how others have blessed you beyond what you could imagine.

**Sit quietly again for as much time as is available to you.**

Storing Up Joy

**Before you begin reading, sit down, breathe normally and be quiet for 1 minute.**

    Joy is a gift. To receive joy as a gift means that it is given to you, you do nothing for it other than ask for it receive it. God gives us the gift of joy.
    Joy is also a choice. To choose joy means that whatever your circumstances, you choose the posture of joy. One great way to do this is through thankfulness. To choose thankfulness leads to joy.
    What can steal our joy? What strips us of the gift? One great culprit is comparison. Comparing ourselves to another and cultivating the breeding grounds for bitterness and envy makes it pretty difficult to choose joy and even to receive it. Comparing our bodies, comparing our families, our homes, our spiritual lives, our cooking, our income, our gifts, … you get the picture. Comparison steals our joy and we have a choice whether to indulge comparison or not.
    How can you store up joy? What are you thankful for? How will you choose joy rather than comparison today? Do not forget to ask God for it as well. It is both a choice and a gift.

**Sit quietly again for as much time as is available to you.**

Grateful

**Before you begin reading, sit down, breathe normally and be quiet for 1 minute.**

What are you grateful for? A house, walls, protection from the rain, the heat, the snow.  A child, a husband, a family, a home. Beauty, love, creation, generosity.  Health, legs, hands, a heart.  Fill in the blanks ______, ______, ______, ______, ...

**Sit quietly again for as much time as is available to you.**