The Gratitude Journey

The Gratitude Journey This page is about being thankful, teaching thankfulness, and growing a thankful society by sewing seeds of gratitude within our culture. I did it. Yes I did.

In the fall of 2014, I went to my Doctor's office, stressed by my responsibilities and the general pace of life in our American society. I knew that my stress was affecting my health and the quality of my life. My doctor asked me a strange question in the middle of our conversation: "Are you grateful?"

I had to admit when I thought about my life, I was grateful but I wasn't grateful routinely. I looked at what was wrong more than what is right and good in my life, and this habit caused me to be stressed! I think many people live life in that mode. My doctor said that I should focus on being grateful for a few weeks and see how my stress level was at the end of that time period. I chose to write a daily post on Facebook about gratitude as my way of trying to alter my negative thought processes. Day 1 was just a chore, a commitment to my doctor. Day 2 was a little easier. I could think of a few more things for which to be thankful. And as I wrote each day, I realized that I was becoming less stressed and happier in general. I was changing...and as I changed, I could see others appreciating what I wrote and also who I was becoming in my life. I realized that gratitude is like a small wave in a pond. We don't always see where the ripples flow, but they continue onward without our awareness, just like thankfulness and gratitude. I continued to post my gratitude posts for some time, feeling better as I did, sometimes receiving few "likes". I decided gratitude doesn't always have an immediate repayment as in a "like" on Facebook but just the act of being grateful was changing the universe in some small way. With that thought comes this journal on gratitude. It is something that I hope to share with others such that we build a life of gratitude together one posting at a time. I hope what you read here blesses you.

04/21/2025

I was thinking of evolve today. I was also thinking about God. I saw the word love in evolve as a reflection when I thought about God making man in his own image. A word in a mirror. evlove. I saw eve in the word at the beginning ev and the end e, interesting. Words are interesting as we study them and look at them and at each letter. Who made letters and why does our alphabet have 26 letters? Why stop there? On purpose? Maybe. Language. How was it made? Light (information) over time. Evolve comes to mind. Language evolved just as we evolved. When we needed better voice tools, we got them. Did we make them or did light come into the world to help us get here? I love the word "light" as in a lightbulb as in "I just got a clue". Where do those clues come from? I like to think that the word that was with God since the beginning was Jesus (Gs us). That says G is us. Who is G? G as in God. Perhaps God said what is with the word God. G o d (G owe d). Why does G owe d? I postulate it is explained simply in those three letter. Else why else would the process that makes humans divine not be spelled some other way. And so I looked at G and then o and then d and it came to me that this is a pictograph explaining God. I saw it. Do you? What does this pictograph say? It says the word was with us since the beginning in The Bible and the word was God and so we got here due to God and God looks like a pictograph that explains a process of who He is. Can you see God? It is all in the letters. They show the journey to the 3 (letters) as 1 (word). The 3 letters are the trinity and they explain the process of God. See for yourself. Love to you and Light (John 3:17-21) and John 1:1-5 and the word for word in Greek is Logos (like in a picture, a logo). I am grateful for a mind to think such thoughts about the mysteries of God and the beginning and the end. Light to you in the Love of God! Kim

06/21/2024

Gratitude spends abundance. That is gratitude spends time logging the abundance of great things happening in our lives. I haven't spent enough time doing that so I am going to give it up to the Lord to help me give this and today I want to thank my dog Zane for being the greatest dog who ever lived for me, and he did. Every moment he gave me his all. I contemplate what dog means and in reflection dog is god and god is the force of life who gives everything. Probably why God created dogs. He was so busy he needed something perfect, something beautiful to help him manage the world, manage us humans, and for me, until 3 days ago on 19 June, Zane had managed me for some years, about 8 for sure. He told me to feed him, to pet him, to kiss his big long nose, and to admire his tail as it wagged for every single thing I ever did. Who needs a cheerleader when you have a dog. Dogs are special. They fill a space when you need it filled, when you need unconditional love and that is all the best that anyone could hope for, a dog. Zane left suddenly on Juneteeth 2024. He was free. Even as he lay on the floor at the Vet's office, he kept looking at me, telling me with his eyes that I would be okay. And I fell straight apart. I screamed. I cried until my eyes were so sore. That was day 1, yesterday was day 2. I heard Zane say, "I am still here in the spirit. I just don't have a body but I will never leave you. I will meet you again someday." And I know he will. Yesterday was a day to think about him and his contribution to my life. No human except my mother had given me more love and understanding, completely and totally. For that I have such gratitude, and a hole, a large one in the living room just where he slept. I cried over his collar and noted it was there but wasn't filled. He was gone. I was in shock and I needed him. I heard him say, "this is day 2. I am supposed to be reflecting on my life. You are disturbing me reflecting by crying and I love you and I am here." I heard it like I hear me and you. Today was day 3, The Resurrection! Zane told me at 3am he had pinked up, he had gone to his next duty station to wait for his next life, only a moment in Heaven. And he told me this new person wasn't Zane anymore but the love Zane had for me would live forever and be with me always. It was his explanation of the 3 days before we rise again. I have never heard such a good explanation, and it came from Zane, my dog, and I was his human. He told me to look at the word Zane his name in reflection (as an image) and it is Enaz, which means Happiness in Saudi. Who knew that Zane would come to me with the perfect name for the perfect day in my life when I knew that is exactly what he was sent by God to do for me, provide Happiness, and in reflection Enaz did for me what Zane worked his whole life to do, provide Happiness. and Today I KNOW that ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN BECAUSE THAT IS WHERE THEY CAME FROM. So for the next lucky person who spends a life with the spirit that was Zane and Enaz, lucky you! And thank you Zane for everything that you ever did for me while I was obsessing over life and not paying all the attention you deserved. Humans don't really deserve dogs but dogs love us anyway. If you haven't experienced such creatures, go down to the pound and save a life, YOURS. Adopt a Dog so that he or she can change your life and bring you ENAZ + HAPPINESS forever. Zane, I love you always and if I could have written a post for every day of your life it would say this. So today, I start or restart my gratitude journal for Zane and his life with me. His verse is Psalm 91:4. It hangs on the wall over his bed. And its true, Zane did what it said every day for me.

08/04/2018

Sleep sweet knowing the Lord is in charge and helping you every day in every way....

❤️

07/24/2018

Time alone is a special thing. It gives us a chance to hear our "guidance" from those we hold close in our head. Ourselves of course. Who is the best judge of what you need?

You.

God Bless. He'll take care of the rest.

Love you!

Me

06/19/2018

Someone great once said, "if we could remember heaven what would we say?"

"Yes"

06/19/2018

I am greatly filled with love for you.
I am greatly filled with love for GOD.
I am greatly filled with love for my father and my brother.
Together we will do everything.

Mala

When we believe we have no coach in our corner on the biggest day in our life, we can't possibly understand that He has ...
05/31/2018

When we believe we have no coach in our corner on the biggest day in our life, we can't possibly understand that He has been there already and paved a path forward for us to something - what? What He knows we need. At the end of every journey is an awakening that we have just stumbled into a plan bigger than man. We go on without any knowledge of the plan. But with grace and love and peace and faith and hope and lust for life, we eventually wake up to knowing...everything. Happy Birthday Soul!

05/31/2018

Gratitude is having the attitude that everything is great every day. Isn't it? When it really comes to it you are alive, well, in control of what you know. All in well. Great.

Thankful for Lao Tzu's beautiful thoughts for a better world. Thankful for art that like words makes feeling in Man - an...
01/23/2018

Thankful for Lao Tzu's beautiful thoughts for a better world. Thankful for art that like words makes feeling in Man - and woman! God loves the grateful giver and I do too.

08/05/2017

So grateful that most of the people in my family are alive unlike my mother's side where everyone is dead To me, or is it me, who thinks about the dead constantly. I mourn my parents day and night. I wish with all their might they would rise from the dead and say something to me, "your fine Kimber-le is to be with those people who loved you so just like me" Dad, Grandad
You see, my grandfather not only raised me, he was a father to me. No one else will ever do the things he did for me. In fact he gave his life for me as I watched him and my mom float away. If you haven't guessed, they held a fire secret. I just outed myself. My grandparents were my real parents. I was adopted by my parents a short time after my birth. If anyone knows how I can get a record of a birth at home in 1963 not 1965 or 4 please see me. Kentucky is the place. My mother was Dora Rector. Her husband was James Caney Rector. My birth name was Magdelaine. Please help me find my birth certificate in the old records down home. The certificate might have listed a still birth and even a boy. It was a lie. It was me. They were giving me away because they were too old to have a baby - girl or boy. I wish they had each told me before they were dead - I mean in time to have time with them as mommy and daddy before they died. Really I just wanted to be told. I am outing myself before anyone else dies with my secret but me. God Bless the person who finds my birth certificate and thanks.

I am truly grateful and greatly filled to the brim by the experiences that I had with my adoptive parents, Grover Corey, and my mother Glenda. She was the best mom.

Not only am I outing myself today but I am recognizing my Aunt Cousin Helen who was the secret of her parents too - my adopted grandfather, Grover Corey - and my adoptive Grandmother, Beulah Corey, who were also like a mother and father to me when my adoptive parents were young through middle age when they died. I wish them all goodnight.

Helen, I love you so. I would call out our relationship more but I don't think we have a name for it - not even in Kentucky - where all the idiots think their family tree has a straight line. Ours is just a Circle of Love from you to me and then to JJ and Steph and Valerie and Tom and then to all of theirs, ours, mine, yours, hers and his and theirs and do I surmise that is how the KY term, "all ya'll" arose when describing family. So I say to "all ya'll, down home Cousins and Kim, I love you all very much.

My real name was Magdelaine so call me crazy cause i'm gonna start using that name.

Magdelaine Le Rector nee Kimberly Alison Corey nee Kimberly Alison Moore new Kimberly Alison Poor

Wow I sure hope some name sticks on me and I know the One who never forgets, never doubts, never fails, never falters. Jesus Christ is my man so just call me Magdelaine Christ I'll be named for my father in Heaven.

Grateful for all my newFacebook friends from around the world. As a random social experiment I am saying yes to all new ...
07/15/2017

Grateful for all my newFacebook friends from around the world. As a random social experiment I am saying yes to all new suggested Facebook friends. I have met some amazing people from everywhere! God Bless you all dear friends in Christ. Jesus that is!

07/15/2017

Glad to have so many friends from around the world. Varying opinions. Varying religions. Varying thoughts. Variation is the intention of one man or woman to get to know the variation of another. Is mot variation the true spice in life. Please variate with me my friends. What is your opinion of Donald Trump? How does his variation swing with you! How about Nancy P(elision) too? Is she getting dementia too or is she just OUT of IT on TV? Well I be, she seems CRA-ZY!

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