Day 1
Welcome to the Gratitude for Every Day 30-Day Devotion!
The season of gratitude is here, and The Bridge invites you to a daily devotion during November. Every day, you’ll find a new Bible verse paired with a thoughtful devotion designed to inspire and uplift your spirit.
In the hustle and bustle of life, it’s easy to overlook the blessings that surround us, but new research says that Gratitude and anxiety can NOT exist in your brain at the same time. So, this month, let’s pause and reflect together on the importance of giving thanks. Each devotion will encourage you to cultivate a grateful heart and recognize God’s goodness in your life.
Don’t miss out on this special opportunity to deepen your faith and embrace gratitude! Come back daily, and let’s celebrate the joy of giving thanks together!
Over the next month, you will be led through scripture and devotionals, which will help you practice gratitude.
Take time to be thankful. Read a short devotion and a selected Bible verse each day.
Let’s get started with Day 1!
DEVOTION
I sat on the couch next to Brad, staring at a mountain of unopened cards piled into a basket on the coffee table. “I haven’t had the heart to open them,” he said without looking at me. His wife of 16 years had passed away less than a week before after a long bout with cancer. I put my arm around him, and we stared at the multi-colored stationary in silence as the minutes ticked by. The creaking above us broke the stillness as we heard his 9-year-old son Jason head for a post-midnight bathroom run.
It took nearly two hours to get through the stack. It didn’t take that long to read them; it took that long to analyze them. Brad told me I had one job. Somehow, make this heart-breaking task fun. Or at least not so painful. Despite the fresh loss, we laughed at all but four as we read them to each other in hushed tones. We, as humans, are not prepared to process deep loss. We don’t even fully have the language to talk about it. This became abundantly clear as we finished the last of what turned out to be 46 cards.
Most people are exactly as clueless as I am when it comes to figuring out what to say to a friend or acquaintance who just lost someone close to them. Brad and I are very analytical people, and we couldn’t help but turn this horrible 1 AM reading session into a statistics tracking exercise.
Here are just a few of the items we wrote down.
38 “Thoughts and prayers”
31 containing 5 or fewer personally written words (not counting signatures).
4 personal memories about time with Danielle
Those four cards brought laughter and tears. They brought the recounting of stories and full conversations about who we lost. Brad was grateful for those four cards. Grateful that her memories were alive and well in friends and family. Well, four of them, anyway.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
We are not often given the gift of being completely and utterly sure of God’s will for us in our lives. Pay special attention to the “all” in this verse. Giving thanks isn’t a suggestion and doesn’t have situational exceptions. "All" includes 2 AM as you finally head to bed feeling drained, alone, and lost.
As we approach a holiday named after being thankful, I want to encourage you not to be stingy with your memories. Share the stories of the people that have impacted your life. If they are sitting around your table, then all the better. But if they aren’t, please don’t also shy away from those memories. Let us all give thanks for the time we are allowed to spend together. No matter how short or long that time may be.
VERSE
1 Thessalonians 5:18 (ESV: English Standard Version)
Don't have your Bible handy? Click here to read online.
AUTHOR
Dave Hubbard
Dave Hubbard grew up all over the world. His dad served in the military so his family moved around a lot. His grandparents lived in Bethany Beach and that made the Delmarva Peninsula the closest thing to a home he had ever known.
After graduating from Philadelphia Biblical University with a BS in Biblical Theology and a BA in Business Administration, Dave moved up to the mountains of Pennsylvania with some college friends and started a youth group which grew and grew. It is currently a thriving church. But starting youth groups in small towns wasn’t exactly a cost effective way to live, so it was time for a change. Dave thought he wanted to be a corporate mergers and acquisitions manager which is why he pursued a business degree; but once he realized he didn’t like cities, or corporations, or wearing suits, or shaving, or really caring about money at all, he went a different direction and moved to Lewes and got an amazing dog named Neelix instead.
