A G RATITUDE J OURNAL

Participants who kept a gratitude journal: felt better about their lives as a whole were more optimistic about the future were a full 25 percent happier than the other participants

A G RATITUDE J OURNAL they sleep 1/2 hour more per evening exercise 33 percent more each week felt more joyful, enthusiastic, interested, attentive, energetic, excited, determined, and strong

Six Practices of Gratitude Our fifth practice of gratitude is… F IFTEEN B ENEDICTIONS

In Judaism, there is a practice of praying what the Jews call the “Eighteen Benedictions.”

F IFTEEN B ENEDICTIONS All of these Benedictions begin with or include the phrase “Bless you O God…” or “Blessed are Thou, O God…”

1 Chronicles 29:10-13 is an example… “Blessed are you, O LORD, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever. Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all.…And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name.”

F IFTEEN B ENEDICTIONS Ortberg challenges us to adapt this form of prayer by taking time three times each day, morning, noon, and night, and making up our own Benedictions.

F IFTEEN B ENEDICTIONS If we did five in the morning, five at noon, and five at night, we would have “Fifteen Benedictions.”

F IFTEEN B ENEDICTIONS These could all begin, “I bless you O God…,” and then you fill in the blank with something you are grateful for in that portion of your day.

G RATITUDE IN GRIEF A soul that traces the brushstrokes of God in each moment lives in irrepressible gratitude.

G RATITUDE IN GRIEF “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1:21

T HE TABLE OF THANKSGIVING “Gratitude in its deepest sense means to live life as a gift to be received thankfully. And true gratitude embraces all of life: the good and the bad, the joyful and the painful, the holy and the not-so-holy. “

T HE TABLE OF THANKSGIVING We do this because we become aware of God's life, God's presence in the middle of all that happens.“ Henri Nouwen, Turn My Mourning Into Dancing