I Need Your Help on My November Gratitude Challenge
Around this same time one year ago, I released the “It is Well With My Soul” Gratitude Journal. The visuals were inspired by the harrowing real life experience of Horatio Spafford, the man who penned the lyrics to the beloved Christian hymn It is Well With My Soul, despite a life full of experiences that might make most of us say the opposite. You can read more of his story HERE if you are not already familiar with it. I didn’t know when I put the journal together that one year later, his song would officially be a part of the Latter-day Saint Hymnbook.
The journal was really for me. It was meant to be a counterpoint to the busy life of a mom with young children. I used to carry my regular journal with me everywhere and write in it in waiting rooms and before Church started and everywhere else I ever sat quietly. Now I have three sons under six and I never sit anywhere quietly. When I do crack open my journal, it’s usually to untangle something mentally difficult and as such, the journal was becoming more and more negative and heavy despite the fact that I live a life with many bright spots.
So, I made a beautiful gratitude journal exclusively to make sure the bright spots had somewhere to land.
I brought in a painter friend to bring my vision of the cover to life; a night sky Horatio Spafford might have looked out on, over a quiet and poignant sea. I wanted to capture the feeling of him looking out over the very waters where his children were lost in a shipwreck, yet still focus on the feeling of peace that led him to write the words of the hymn.
I brought in a graphic designer to make the pages readable and beautiful, particularly the 100 gratitude prompts and the powerful quotes on gratitude I had curated from thinkers from different countries and eras. I wrote up a few of the stories of gratitude that have inspired me in the hopes they would inspire anyone who owned this journal. I visited printers and corresponded with manufacturers to make sure that it could have the features and the quality of a journal I would want to buy and keep forever. I wanted it be a hardcover and I wanted foil stamped text and silver edged pages and a ribbon book mark. I wanted it to be a beautiful thing where people could write their beautiful things.
And it was unbelievable to finally hold it in my hand and see that it had come together into something real, and better than I ever imagined. I’ve handled a thousand of them now as I send them out to you with high hopes for the peace they will bring as a tool to cultivate gratitude in your lives.
The problem is, I’ve still never personally written in one of these journals that I originally made for me.
That’s where I need your help.
I’d like to embark on a “Never Miss” November gratitude challenge. For the month of November, I’d like to write about something I’m grateful for every day, never miss. By the end of Thanksgiving month, I’d like to have 30 entries, be they big or small, to find out for myself whether living in daily gratitude does for me what I hoped it would do for you when I made this journal.
But I need some accountability buddies, and that’s where you come in.
To encourage others to join the challenge, I’m offering the “It is Well With My Soul” Gratitude Journal for $ 12 for the rest of October. That’s more than 30% off their regular price. In addition, if you’d like your whole family to take the challenge, or your friend group, or your book club, you can get the journals for just $ 10 a piece when you buy 5 or more.
As part of my accountability to you for keeping up with the challenge, I will write something every Wednesday about what I’m learning, what I’m grateful for, or how I’d like to do better. I would also love to hear what you are learning and what you are grateful for. Send me your thoughts and your grateful reflections at
ma****@me**************.com
and I will include them as part of my check-in so we can all encourage us through the process.
Thanksgiving is becoming the forgotten holiday as the consumerism of Halloween and Christmas keep creeping closer and closer together. Let’s make this year different. Let’s make November your favorite month this time around with the “Never Miss” November gratitude challenge.
CLICK HERE to get your “It is Well With My Soul” Gratitude Journal at this discounted price. And don’t forget the discount gets even better if you’re going in on it with loved ones.
The post I Need Your Help on My November Gratitude Challenge first appeared on Meridian Magazine.
Meridian Magazine