**PSST – hi friend! thank you for your interest in 40 days of joy in the ordinary! one of my favorite things is hosting a Lent challenge each year. THIS post is about the 2019 Lent challenge BUT we do a new challenge each year and i’d love to have you join! you can find the details and SIGN UP for this year’s Grow in Gratitude Lent Challenge right HERE!

do you ever get to the end of a day, or even the end of a morning and think, THAT was hard. everything just went wrong. or maybe right in the middle of things you find yourself thinking, THIS is not the way i thought this would go.

me too. all the time.

it is so easy to spend our days waiting for the picture-perfect moment when everything is running smoothly and going the way we thought it would. THEN we can take a minute to feel happy and grateful.

and so we wait. we spend time wishing our ordinary would change – be less hard, less tired, less busy, less of the same thing over and over.

but here’s what i’ve discovered. it is really hard to change our ordinary. sure, there are some habits we should work on and goals to tackle. but our ordinary day-to-day, sometimes messy life is just that. life. so maybe that’s where we’re going wrong. maybe we need to stop trying to change our ordinary and instead start thinking about it differently. 

a friend sent me this quote recently by Henri Nouwen. his words spoke to this idea, and it got me thinking about a theme for this year’s LITTLE lent list challenge.

here’s what he said {see if you can choose just one favorite part!}:

The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.

Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint…The choice for gratitude rarely comes without some real effort. But each time I make it, the next choice is a little easier, a little freer, a little less self-conscious…There is an Estonian proverb that says: “Who does not thank for little will not thank for much.” Acts of gratitude make one grateful because, step by step, they reveal that all is grace.

what line stood out to you? one of my favorites is, “The choice for gratitude rarely comes without some real effort.” and with that, friends, it is with great EXCITEMENT that i invite YOU to join in this year’s LITTLE lent list challenge…

Grow in Gratitude, A 40-Day Guided Gratitude Journal for Lent

let’s put in the effort together this lent! let’s uncover the small joys in our ordinary and allow those SMALL JOYS to add up to ONE BIG GRATITUDE. gratitude towards a God who doesn’t promise us picture perfect days, but does promise He will always be there for us in our ordinary, just waiting to be noticed in the small joys! all the details for this year’s Grow in Gratitude right HERE!

 

{if you’re like me, accountability is always a good thing. want to share this challenge with others on pinterest? click on the red save icon on the image below and add this to your boards.}