I opened a 5-year time capsule last week…

Hi Friends!

 

Today is an exciting day! I want to extend a big Happy Monday welcome to our newest friends. Ladies, if this is your first Happy Monday email, I’m so glad you’re here. This is one of my favorite times of the week—gathering together with you. My hope in each devotion is to help you kick off your week with Jesus and, hopefully, a smile.

 

Here in our Happy Monday community, we dig into Scripture and talk about real-life things: letting go of control, overcoming worry, breaking free from stress and overwhelm, and stepping into God’s great adventure of faith and purpose for our lives.

 

Today’s devotional has a little bit of everything! I’m excited to share a five-year update on a special project I started during the pandemic.

Last Thursday, I opened my five-year gratitude time capsule. You might be wondering, what’s a gratitude time capsule?

 

Here’s the story: In Summer 2020, life felt upside down. I was healing from the trauma of our family’s addiction crisis and divorce as well as adjusting to an empty nest while living alone during the pandemic. My faith was strong, but my mental health was struggling. I was surviving each day, but needed something to look forward to.

 

Back in 2011, I read Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts, where she wrote, “Gratitude is the birthplace of joy.” In Summer 2020, God brought that line back to me, sparking the idea for my time capsule.

 

I went to Dollar Tree, bought a pretty box for $5.00 and a big jar for $3.50. Then, I drove home and cut scrapbook paper into little squares. I made myself a promise: I’d write down at least one gratitude a day and place it into the jar. Then, I’d open the capsule in five years. 

 

During that long summer of uncertainty, I was able to see where God was working because I was intentionally looking for His hand moving in my life. One day at a time, I was reminded that He was taking care of me. I had no idea what the future would hold, but as my jar filled up on my kitchen table, my heart filled up with hope, too.

 

I shared my new gratitude project at my church in June 2020. During my message, I called this goal of looking for where God was at work in my life “Putting on Gratitude Glasses.”  One of our graphic designers made these glasses (see picture) for my message – I still have them in my home office!

The big idea from my message was simple: We practice giving thanks to God in everyday things so we will learn to give Him thanks in all things.

 

Here are a few of the gratitudes I tucked into my time capsule. You’ll notice they aren’t big or grand, but small, meaningful moments I recognized as God’s grace and blessing. Taking time to write down these simple gratitudes added up to growing my joy, because I had a visible record of God’s faithfulness right in front of me. Even though so much of my life had changed, I could see God’s care for me.

That practice of gratitude later inspired a chapter in my Stronger Than Stress book (see pg. 184)  and Bible study. The scriptural foundation for that chapter is Psalm 100, a reminder that gratitude is like oxygen for our souls. I love sharing Eugene Peterson’s interpretation of Psalm 100:

 

 

 

 

 

Can we say AMEN to this? Yes! 

 

Friends, thank you for joining me and letting me share about my gratitude time capsule. Here’s a link to the Instagram post I shared on Thursday.

 

If you’ve been feeling negative, hopeless, or spiritually “meh,” can I encourage you to create a gratitude time capsule? You can do it on your own or with your family. Place the jar somewhere you’ll see it often (like the kitchen table), so you’ll be reminded to use it.

 

Or maybe you already have another gratitude practice, like journaling. If you have a creative idea, I’d love to hear about it! I’ll share some of the most creative ones in next week’s devotion.