on being Grateful.

Whenever I name a blog “on x, y, z” I always feel a bit like the great St. Thomas Aquinas who wrote a number of books called “On…such and such topic”. I hardly think it is a bad thing to be in the company of such a great saint.

Was Aquinas really left-handed like me?!

I never really saw myself as a Twitter person. I had avoided it for so long because I was sure I would never understand it, nor would I care to. I’m actually quite glad I joined a few months ago. It is the fastest paced news source out there, it keeps me connected and makes me think. What profound (and not so profound) things can I share with the world in 140 characters or less?

One of the lovely Catholic folks I follow on Twitter does something really interesting: everyday she tweets a “#gratfultweet” and then numbers it. She’s been doing this for nearly a year. I found myself looking forward to her grateful tweet of the day, wondering what different thing she had found to be grateful for with each new day. She almost never repeats the same thing twice. One day I finally decided to join her in this grateful tweet extravaganza. It’s been over a month now and I love it.

Throughout my day I find myself thinking, “oh! That could be my grateful tweet for tomorrow! Or that thing!” When you really stop to pay attention to it, there is a lot to be grateful for. I find, more often than not, that I would like to say every day how grateful I am for the Mass, for the availability of the Sacraments, and for the love of God. The trick is to be thankful and grateful for the different ways that God’s love manifests itself to us. Some days I’m grateful for the reading of the day, some days I’m thankful for the beautiful roses in the backyard. There is, however, always something, each and every day that I am grateful for.

Sometimes I can be a particularly negative person. We all do it. We have those days when nothing seems to go right, we are just plain grouchy, we don’t know why, and nobody better mess with us. It is on those days that I am most thankful for the grateful tweet challenge. I fall asleep at night after a particularly annoying day and find myself thinking about what my grateful tweet will be for the next day. It is a wonderful challenge, then, to go back over the day and see that, even though I was a total grouch, God’s love was all around me.

What started out as a simple tweet has become a slow changing of the attitudes of my heart, and for that I am grateful. More often than not I find that 140 little characters isn’t enough to explain how grateful I am, even if it is for the little things. To say that I’m grateful for the Catholic blogging community isn’t enough, I want to say why I am so thankful for it. In those moments that I want to say more that my little tweet will allow I offer up a prayer of thankgiving for the fact that words can never fully express my gratitude for God’s love and blessings in my life.

What are you grateful for today? Share in the comment box, I want to know what you are grateful for! Can’t come up with anything? Here are a few gems from my past month of tweets:

For time spent with my baby brother before he entered the seminary.
For sleepovers .
For dancing.
For adoration.
For sleeping in.
For the conviction to wait for the the fulfillment of God’s promises, rather than trying to fulfill them myself.
For deep conversations.
For red lipsitck.
For the beauty of the created world.

Be grateful.

What I’m Listening To:
“Life On The Run” by Dierks Bentley
“The Woman I Love” by Jason Mraz
“You’re Dead To Me” by Dierks Bentley
“Draw Me A Map” by Dierks Bentley