Every morning when we wake up, we get to choose our attitude. Any attitude we wish is available for the taking. We can put it on and wear it the entire day, and just like the right pair of shoes can change the outfit, the right attitude can change your experience.

Most days we wake up unaware of this choice. We wait and see how others are acting, how our hair looks, and what the weather is.

Good day, good attitude.
Bad day, bad attitude.
Average day, average attitude.

We allow our experience to dictate and determine our perspective. But within us is the power to change our entire experience, regardless of circumstances. Within you is your choice of attitude, and your choice changes everything you experience.

Today we have the extreme gift of waking up to a day when the preferred attitude is predetermined. It’s Thanksgiving, and what do we do on Thanksgiving besides eat a feast … we give thanks. Yes, we knew to wake up with an attitude of gratitude today. The calendar tells us today is the day to wake up to thanksgiving.

What would your life look like if you continually gave thanks? I mean in the presence of real life, less than perfect scenarios, would things begin to look and feel different if they were covered in the gravy of gratitude?

Yes, the gravy of gratitude – let it cover everything!

Gravy on that turkey, gravy on those potatoes, gravy to soak your bread in. Yum. Where do you get that gravy?

If you’re not a true cook, you may not know where gravy comes from. Honey, you don’t buy that gravy, you make that gravy from what you already have. You use the leftover grease or broth to make gravy.

The gravy of gratitude is made from what you already have. You can’t buy gratitude. You may think once you have what you really want then you’ll be grateful, but I assure you, that’s not the way it works. You’ll always want more or something else.

Gratitude comes from what you already have.

Melody Beattie said “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.”

I don’t know who you might be missing around the table this year, but I’m truly sorry. I’m deeply sorry for your loss. I’m sorry for the division. I’m sorry for the dysfunction. I’m sorry for the distance. For whatever has caused the empty seats around your table, I’m so sorry.

I’m missing important people too. No kids. No family. No friends. It’s just my husband and I. But God has given me so much bacon in my life already that I have all this leftover bacon grease from what he has given me before, that I can make the gravy of gratitude today. I have everything I need to be grateful, and now everything I have will be better because of that gratitude.

Today, may you see what is here over what isn’t. Unlock the fullness of life today with your thanksgiving. We truly have so much to be grateful for.

Let me throw my favorite absolutely overwhelming statistics at you, like I do every year on Thanksgiving:

If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of the world. (Is that you? Do you have food in your refrigerator? Do you have clothes on your back? Do you have a roof over your head and a place to sleep? You are wildly rich, my sister!)

If you have any amount of money in the bank, in your purse, or even some spare change hidden in your couch cushions, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealth. (Is that you too? You may not have a lot, but you have a little. You are ridiculously blessed, my friend!)

That’s me. I qualify for both of these categories. Isn’t that you too?

Girls, do you know what this means …. this means we are wildly rich and ridiculously blessed! Even in our current less than perfect life scenario, we have so much to be grateful for. Recognize it now. This is you. Wildly rich and ridiculously blessed.

And you know what, you’re entitled to absolutely none of it. When you’re entitled to nothing, you can be grateful for everything.

You are wildly rich and ridiculously blessed. That is your truth. Now, what will you do with it? Who will you thank?

Luke 17: 11-19 tells us a story of 10 men sick with leprosy who met Jesus. Jesus healed all 10 of them, but only 1 came back to thank him. Now Jesus was literally shocked by this and says “Didn’t I heal ten men? Where are the other nine?” And Jesus said to the one who had returned to thank him, “Stand up and go. Your faith has healed you.”

All 10 men had received healing, but to the 1 who returned to thank Jesus, he received more than healing of his illness. The Greek word Jesus used was ‘sozo’. Your faith has ‘sozo’ you. This word, ‘sozo’, is more than just a healing of disease, it is a an act of saving and making completely whole.

All 10 lepers received healing for their disease, but only the 1 who returned to thank Jesus received wholeness. Not only was his leprosy healed, but his mind was healed, his heart was healed. He was made completely whole. The gravy of gratitude covered his entire body and absotluely nothing was left the same.

This word ‘sozo’ is used in John 3:17, “God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to ‘sozo’ the world through him.” To save us, to heal us, to make us whole and complete.

Jesus isn’t just interested in fixing your problem and helping you get through this issue – honey, he’s interested in ‘sozo-ing’ this. He wants to heal you completely, fix the issue in your mind and in your heart, make you radically whole and forever complete. And that’s what happens when you come back again and again and thank him.

Let gratitude cover your entire life like gravy and receive the ‘sozo’ of Jesus! Keep coming back to say thank you.

We gather today as the wildly rich and ridiculously blessed. The ones who have an abundance of proof in their lives of God’s goodness and grace. The ones who have been saved and redeemed. The ones who have been given more than we could ever deserve. Yes, the ones covered in gravy.

We are also, unfortunately, the ones who have proven to be ungrateful in the past, caught up in the details, rushed through it and missed the overall truth in our lives that we are SO FORTUNATE. We’ve been one of the nine who hasn’t come back to Jesus to say thank you before. But that has changed. Now we’re the one who runs back to say thank you.

We have the gravy of gratitude! We have the remains from all we have been given before, and now what we have left is here to make everything better.

So here we are, among the masses who have received, but among the few who have returned to give thanks. Jesus, we’re here today to say thank you. We’ve come back to you in sheer gratitude for all you’ve done for us.

Thank you for our lives.
Thank you for our blessings that are in such great abundance and continual supply that we overlook them.
Thank you for waking us up to a new day of life today! Oh how absolutely amazing!

If you can walk, did you fail to show gratitude for legs that work?
If you can see, if you can hear, did you fail to say thank you for it just because you’ve always had sight and hearing?
Have we failed to show our thanksgiving for the electricity that powered on, the water that flowed, the heat that warmed us, and the car that started.
Have we overlooked the blessing of who we do have, thinking about who we don’t.

We have missed many things already today, but we won’t miss it all.

We won’t go through this entire day oblivious to God’s goodness in our lives. We stop right here and gather as the wildly rich and ridiculously blessed, covered in the gravy of gratitude, to simply say, THANK YOU.

We run back to the giver of life, we return to give you our praise. Thank you for making us whole.

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