Gratitude Gone Stale?

By: Kathleen Ries-Jubenville   |    Read time: 2 minutes

I've been hearing so much about gratitude lately; and frankly, it's become a bit stale for me. Much like many things in life, the sentiment is nice, but the application is lacking. I see people posting pictures of their good life - their beautiful homes, fancy vacations, and gourmet meals - saying they are grateful, or blessed.

It's good they appreciate these things, but it seems like the unspoken message is, if you don't have these things, you aren't blessed and you may not have anything to be grateful for.

The missing piece in these social media posts is the deep, sincere feeling of gratitude, characterized by awe and wonder. 

Just to be clear, I'm guilty of this too. I say a blessing before dinner, and when I can smell the marinara, I do it quickly: "God, thank you for this food. Amen." I'm confident God heard me, but I wouldn't blame Him for rolling His eyes. Why? The feeling of gratitude is missing from my prayer. I'm not really appreciating the blessing in front of me.

When I take time to think about it, I'm in wonder of the plate of pasta in front of me and the process it went through to arrive there: from the farmers, and pickers, and shippers, and boxers, and chefs, and grocers to my dining table. Not to mention, the fact that my husband and I were both born in the 'United States of Opportunity,' into loving and stable families, given free education and a safe environment to learn. And now, we have careers that enable us to make enough money to buy the ingredients for our dinner without even notice or care to the charge on our bank account.

And at an ever deeper level, I am in awe of an earth that provides us with the sunshine, water, soil, and air to grow the tomatoes, wheat, and spices.

Perhaps instead of posting pictures of our meals because the food looks and tastes good, we post because we are truly in awe and wonder that it's even possible to be on our plate. Now that's gratitude!

So ask yourself: how can I add a sense of awe and wonder to my daily life or my next social media post (because sharing feelings of gratitude is also so important!)?