Welcome to today's practice.
My name is Erika von Kaschke and I'm delighted that you've joined me for this Thanksgiving practice.
As we've entered the Advent season,
We're surrounded by advertisements proclaiming that this is the season of joy and thanksgiving.
But perhaps your year or the season of life that you're in has not left you feeling that joyful.
Perhaps you felt that God has let you down,
People have let you down and you just don't feel it.
Our joy tanks are situated deep within who we are as a person.
It's not something that you can manufacture,
But it is something that we can learn to practice and explore.
Learning how to enjoy your joy will allow you to step into the true you.
So in today's session,
We will explore the things that you are grateful for and the joy of the season.
So join me now as you find a comfortable position.
Put the focus on your breath.
Start by inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth.
Inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth.
Whatever your position,
Become aware of where your body is touching the ground or surface.
Continue to take deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth.
Think about your location.
What can you smell?
Become aware of the textures around you.
And as you inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth.
I'd like you to join me as you take a moment to see in your mind's eye the one thing that you're grateful for about who you are as a person.
Who you were created to be.
What is that one authentic part of yourself that just shines like a light in the darkness?
Take this moment to thank yourself for allowing yourself to be the true you,
For that light to keep shining.
Thank you for taking care of yourself this year,
For showing up in life.
Irrespective of how hard things may have been,
Thank you for choosing life,
For choosing being life-giving to others,
Especially those who are closest to you.
But also to those people who perhaps didn't deserve your kindness,
But that you still chose to show up in a kind and life-giving way.
Today,
I celebrate your life.
I thank God for creating you exactly the way that you are,
With all your gifts,
Your personality,
All your quirks,
The way that you look,
The way that you move.
I thank God for the sound of your voice.
I thank him for your presence and the way that you enter a room.
I thank him for the things that you feel passionately about in life,
For the things and the people that you care for.
For the things that you fight against and the things you fight for.
That you are his hands and his feet,
Even on the days when you don't feel like it.
But above all,
I thank him for the times when you get to spend time with yourself.
So as you continue to focus on your breath,
I invite you to join me in thanking God for his goodness.
I remember Psalm 107,
Verse 9,
1 to 9,
That reminds us that God is good.
His love endures forever.
I thank him for all the harm he has kept away from us this year.
I thank him for gathering us from lonely places,
Places where we felt displaced and other.
I thank him for his provision,
That he gave us physical and spiritual food.
And that when we cried out to him in times of distress and trouble,
He delivered us.
That he sent people around us,
Those people that showed up just in time.
Those divine appointments that you just cannot script in life.
Above all,
I thank him for sending us his son,
The child of peace.
That he's inviting us to be peacemakers in this world,
To care for those around us and for creation as well.
I thank him that he doesn't expect us to be perfect,
But that he,
In his kindness,
Wants relationship with us.
Turning our eyes to him,
Beholding his beauty,
So that he transforms us into who we were created to be.
So that our beauty can truly shine forth.
So thank you,
Lord Jesus,
For making the way for us to experience your unfailing love.
As you become aware of your surroundings again,
I bless you today to be courageous,
To start discovering new avenues of joy.
May you be blessed in seeing with new eyes,
To see yourself through new eyes,
To see the world through new eyes.
And to see the nuances of joy rippling through your life.
May the everyday things in life become alive to you,
As you discover that you were designed for more.
