Beautiful Moments
Jean-François Millet’s L'Angélus, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
“In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.”
About seven or eight years ago, I read the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. The book details the author’s own journey of living out the line from Saint Paul. At the beginning of the book, she starts writing down things in her life for which she is thankful (the goal being to reach 1,000).
Inspired by her story, I tried then, and at various times since, to write down what I am thankful for every day. Sometimes I have tried keeping a dedicated notebook, sometimes I have tried writing them down as they happen, sometimes I have focused on writing down three every night before bed. I was even counseled by a priest to do this exercise.
Everytime, however, the same thing happened: I ended up disappointed because, despite doing exactly what Ann Voskamp, Saint Paul and other popular writers have suggested and modeled, I did not really find myself feeling any more grateful. In fact, there were times when the exercise left me feeling resentment and bitterness.
I have always had a love/hate relationship with thanksgiving, especially as it is expressed in the above line from Saint Paul.
On the one hand, I find this a marvelous and enlightening verse! He literally tells us what to do in order to follow God’s will! Yes! Clear and concise!
On the other hand, it stirs up some deep feelings of disappointment and frustration. There is part of me that hears this as a harsh command: “Sure, there are hard things in your life, but, you should look at the good things and you should feel grateful for what you have been given!”
For a long time, I still felt like I just needed to buck up and live out the verse. I felt myself saying: It is clearly true and God’s will, so my feelings must be wrong.
Additionally, even when good things were happening, I still struggled to be grateful!
I feel like so often I have lived the opposite of the famous line from Alfred Lord Tennyson. He said “Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Pretty sure my motto has been: “Better not to love too much or not at all, just in case it all falls apart.”
Queue the cycle of shame and self-hatred.
Thankfully, God did not leave me in that place of misery and forced obedience. After all, Jesus tells us, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” (Matthew 9:13)
Recently, God brought something into my life to start to heal my very ingrained distrust of gratitude.
I was introduced to an exercise called Beautiful Moments by a Catholic therapist named Isaac Wicker via his KNOWN program and Whole Human Challenge. (I have written about my healing ACOD experience with KNOWN in a previous post). The exercise was simple: at the beginning of each weekly session for the program, we were asked to stop and write down ten beautiful moments from the previous week. Although this was a little difficult at first, I found myself quickly becoming excited to do this exercise!
Isaac describes the Beautiful Moments exercise as follows:
“The Beautiful Moments exercise is a way to intentionally train our brains to see the Good, the True, and the Beautiful that is already happening in our lives. When our brains are stressed, they will literally filter out or minimize beautiful moments in favor of spending more cognitive resources on threat processing and threat vigilance. We need to exercise our wills to reclaim the good gifts that are given each day. ”
As I completed this exercise during the course of the program, I started to realize a new feeling emerging spontaneously in my heart: gratitude!!! In doing as Isaac instructed and reclaiming the gifts I was being given by the Father, I was naturally becoming grateful for what I saw unfolding before me. I truly had been filtering out the good in favor of spending much of my time and energy on self-protection. From that place, I was unable to experience gratitude, even if I was ‘doing the right thing’ in making lists and keeping track.
All this time, I had been trying desperately to force myself to be grateful because I should feel gratitude. Turns out, grasping does not actually work!! Bullying myself and pressuring myself into feeling grateful had the opposite effect because true gratitude is a movement of the heart in response to love. I was putting the cart before the horse, so to speak, by forcing myself to be grateful before recognizing and receiving the good gifts I was being given. I was taking ‘fake it til you make it’ to an extreme.
I thought that if I just sat down and listed all the things I ‘should’ be grateful for in my life that I would then become a person filled with gratitude. I saw this exercise as the ‘fix’ for my pain and struggles. All the people I read about who had done this seemed so happy and peaceful. I wanted that for myself! My experience in life, largely shaped by my parents divorce, had taught me (incorrectly) that if I wanted something I had to get it for myself. So I went for it, only to be disappointed again and again.
The Beautiful Moments exercise has been like rehab for my desperate, tired soul. Without my immediate recognition, looking for and sitting with the beautiful moments in my life was teaching me to see and receive the Father’s good gifts. It has been more than just making a list and completing an exercise. It has been a rebuilding of my relationship with the Father. It has been slowly, but surely, awakening me to the good right here and now; in things as big as the money we needed for the new roof and things as small as an extra hug from my five year old at the end of a long day. It has been teaching me of the Father’s faithfulness at all times and in all places. Now, my gratitude comes from my relationship with the Father (through seeing the beautiful moments He gives me every day) instead of my own efforts and calculations.
This is by no means an immediate, magical cure (although I have found the results to be quite miraculous in my own life).
I can not promise you that this will ‘fix’ your gratitude problem or your distrust of good things.
All I can do is to invite you to journey with me.
Join me in opening your eyes to the beautiful things that are present right here and now.
Stop what you are doing right now, take out pen and paper and make your own list of ten Beautiful Moments from the last day (or week).
Begin now.
Step out in trust.
And then wait and watch to see what the Father wants to show you.
[Editor’s note: If you are interested in a gratitude journal, please check out the Life-Giving Wounds online store for a beautiful journal that can be used for this purpose.]
Intercessory Prayer:
St. Paul the Apostle, please pray for adult children of divorce, that, in everything, we may give thanks.
About the author:
Stephanie is a wife and mother of three boys. She and her family live in Pennsylvania. Her husband works for their local parish and she homeschools their boys. She likes reading, watching documentaries, playing board/card games and going for walks without her phone.
Reflection Questions for Small Groups or Individuals
Reflect for a moment on the beautiful moments in your life. What is one beautiful moment from this day; one from this past week; and one from this past year? What would you say was the most beautiful moment of your life?
How would you define gratitude, and how have you seen gratitude lived out?
Can you think of someone in whom you see gratitude expressed well?
What beautiful things is the Father showing you?