Thankful Month

Happy Thankful Month!

In celebration of November I'm re-committing to what I wrote about in a 2008 post:

Gratitude in Prayer [Posted October 14, 2008]

So far the Conference talk that has influenced me the most from last session was Elder Bednar's talk on praying with gratitude. He said:

"The most meaningful and spiritual prayers I have experienced contained many expressions of thanks and few, if any, requests."

Here's what I've found as I've tried to pray with more gratitude this last week:

1) I've tried to include more thanks and less requests in my prayers. One thing this has done is encouraged me to go beyond my usual list of thanks: thanks for my family, thanks for the gospel, thanks for our safety, etc. Since I've had to think about other things I am grateful for, I've been reminded of how truly wonderful life is. I've found this spilling over into times when I'm not praying. For example, last night I was making muffins and couldn't help but notice how great the blueberries smelled.

2) Praying with gratitude has increased my faith. Focusing on the "thanks" part of prayer has helped me to feel that I am really talking with God. Instead of just listing thanks for this or that, I've realized that I am thanking Heavenly Father for His role in the things for which I am thankful. This has caused me to think about what His roles have really been in each of those things. For example, I'm thankful for Chad being a part of my life. In my prayer, I can say, "I'm thankful for Chad being a part of my life," but since I'm actually talking to God and want to personally thank Him for His role in my blessings, I can say, "I thank thee for guiding my life and guiding Chad's life so that we would meet. I thank thee for teaching me and preparing me so I would be ready to be married when I met Chad. I thank thee for helping me to be clean so that I could be sealed to Chad in the temple."

3) Praying with gratitude has brought the witness of the Holy Ghost to my prayers a lot more than before. Since I'm moving beyond my standard list of things and actually thinking about God's role in my life and thanking Him for specific things, the Holy Ghost has the opportunity to testify to me that what I'm saying is true. For example, if I'm worried about someone in my family, I can pray for God to help him, but I can also thank God for all of the help He has given that person so far, for the testimony He has given that person, for the people who have been inspired to help him (and I could list specific things there), for the opportunity that this trial has given me to serve and to learn more about how to be like Christ. With each of those statements, the Holy Ghost testifies that what I'm saying is true and really is part of God's plan in this situation. I would never have thought that praying with gratitude would lead to opportunities to learn while I'm praying, but that is what happens, because while I'm looking for things to be grateful about in a situation I'm taught more about what God's plan is.

4) This last week I've had some challenges (Jozie's been sick and my car was intentionally damaged by someone), but I think that praying with more gratitude has helped me to be better at not focusing on those things. Instead of remaining upset about my car, I can thank Heavenly Father that we were not hurt and that no one entered my car or our house and can thank Him for whatever His hand may have been in that (we previously had a similar occurrence when someone broke open one of our house windows but never came inside). I can tell Him that I'm thankful that we have car insurance to help with the costs. I can thank Him for doing whatever He has needed to do all these years to keep us relatively safe, and that reminds me that He does that for a reason, and that I need to make that work worthwhile by helping to build His kingdom.