by Diane Cretin
My mom was born in 1930 and grew up on a farm in Pittsfield, Illinois. I loved to visit her parents on the farm when I was little. For my brothers and sister and I, most of our time was spent outdoors. I remember making "dolls" out of hollyhock flowers. Because we were outside so much, we would still use the outside latrine while we played because it was convenient. But we had a choice. My mom grew up not having a bathroom in the house. It was hard for me to imagine trudging through the snow in winter to go to the bathroom with no heat available. I think this was the first time I consciously thought about how blessed I am with the life I get to live.
During this time of sheltering in place, I have been thinking a lot about gratitude. I can choose to think about all that I have or I can choose to focus on what I don't have right now. Before SIP, when I drove my granddaughter to school we would pray to God during the drive and thank Him for our many blessings - a nice sized house to live in, indoor water that is safe to drink, warm water for showers, money to pay for heat, plenty of food and clothes, jobs, cars, a garden, our dogs, our church family, our personal family, and Olivia's school, including her teacher and the principal. The list could go on and on.
The Bible encourages us to be grateful and give thanks.
Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. Psalm 95:2 This makes me think of our Sunday Worship experience. I am so grateful for the efforts of our worship team as we are able to continue to celebrate God through music and song.
Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving, sing praises to our God. Psalm 147:7
I appreciate that we have the opportunity to sing along during Worship if that is our desire.
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. His love endures forever. Psalm 136:1
Worship reminds me of God's love for me, causing me give thanks for his unfailing love. My quiet time allows me to reflect on God's mercy and goodness. This reflection results in gratitude.
I also like some sayings about gratitude and thankfulness.
"Gratitude keeps our spirits up and our outlook bright." - Tony Dungy
“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” – Willie Nelson
“Gratitude helps you to grow and expand; gratitude brings joy and laughter into your life and into the lives of all those around you.” – Eileen Caddy
“The more grateful I am, the more beauty I see.” – Mary Davis
“There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude, a quiet joy.” — Ralph H. Blum
“If you concentrate on finding whatever is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.” — Rabbi Harold Kushner
“Opening your eyes to more of the world around you can deeply enhance your gratitude practice.” – Derrick Carpenter
One way to be more grateful is to use a gratitude journal. It encourages you to write down several things each day that you are grateful for. Here is an inexpensive one that I got earlier this year. It is available online at Copperfield's Books and Amazon.
If you would like to buy this Gratitude journal from Copperfield's, follow this link:
If you would like to buy this Gratitude journal from Amazon, follow this link:
However, you can also simply write down 3 things you are grateful for each day in any notebook or journal that you have.
Often gratitude will result in you wanting to take action. One way to do this is through making personal cards. Handmade cards are always lovely to receive and much more personal than a store bought card. And know that you don't need to be "crafty" to make cards. I am not very gifted artistically. I look up pictures of cards that I like and then do my best to duplicate them, sometimes adding my own twist.
This week kids may be making cards for their teacher. My granddaughter's teacher loves ladybugs so Olivia choose this simple ladybug card to make for her teacher. She used a template that can be used for personal use and found at
https://iheartcraftythings.com/ under Kids Crafts, then insects.
Olivia's personal message to her teacher was written on white paper that is glued down on the inside of the card. The same post has a template for a bee and a butterfly.
You don't need many supplies to make basic cards. You can use construction paper, cardstock (we prefer 65# paper to the heavier weights), origami paper, or printer paper. Grab a ruler, a pencil, scissors, a glue stick, and a fine point pen or colored pencils as well as googly eyes if you have them. Eyes can also be make by cutting out small circles on white paper and using a marker to draw in the black centers. If you don't have any craft supplies on hand, that is OK. I have also included a card I made on the computer using Word.
This shark card is easy to make. We did not have true grey construction paper, so we used a light blue although you cannot really tell that from the picture. I decided to make this card be a birthday card. The teeth were colored in using a white colored pencil. I traced around a tuna can to make the circles. The white is the same sized circle cut in half. I made the fins tracing around a paper cup. Then I cut that circle in half and made the inward side of the fin a little more curved. The top fin and mouth I free form cut. It took me two times to get the mouth shape how I wanted it. My first one was way too big.
At the beginning of my card making, I decided to make 2 columns on a Word doc and type in expressions so I would have options if I did not want to write by hand on a card. It doesn't look like it in this picture, but the background is actually white.
I also used printer paper folded in half to make heart templates. Keep trying until you get the shape how you want it.
For the Congratulations! card, I folded an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of white 65# cardstock in half. I traced the template I made onto various colors of construction paper. I used a ruler and fine point pen to draw in the strings. Then I cut the word Congratulations! from the paper I had printed and backed it with black paper. I used a ruler and pencil to draw lines when cutting out the Congratulations! and the black background so the sides would be straight.
The other card here I consider to be an All Occasion card. I folded green cardstock in half. Then cut a yellow sheet in half. I traced the large heart template on the yellow page and cut it out. I had to fold the paper a little to get started cutting from the inside of the paper. Once the heart is cut out, you lay the yellow sheet over green sheet without gluing it down so you can move it when you glue down the embellishments. I looked through our craft bins and found different kinds of ribbon and string. Once you have glued down your choices for what will show through the heart shaped hole, glue the yellow half page on top. Your All Occasion card is now ready for you to add your personal message inside.
So many people are currently celebrating graduation. You may not be able to see them in person, but you could make a card for them.
The first card did not come out as well as I hoped. It would look a lot better if I had some type of small cord on hand instead of needing to use yarn. The diplomas is made by rolling a strip of white paper around a pencil and taping it closed on the back (I cut my tape strip in half.) If I really had a graduate to send this to, I would find out the school colors and make the tassel and cord around the diploma be one of the school colors and the color of the cardstock used for the card be the other color. I think I might also just put Congratulations on the front in bigger font and make it go diagonally across the front at the bottom. I would definitely tweak this card as I think it looks too plain.
The other graduation card was made on my computer using Word. I went to pixabay.com because it has free images to use and selected this picture. After pasting it onto the bottom half of my page, I inserted a text box and added the Congratulations Graduate! in red font. I filled the background of the text box with a color that looked like the background color of the card. Then my printer decided to show me who was boss. Although I have made cards before on my computer and my print preview showed it would print perfectly, it printed my image on the top half of the paper instead of the bottom. So in the interest of time, I cut the image out and glued it onto the bottom half of a piece of white cardstock. Sometimes you just need to punt.
As we have grateful thoughts, we can think of people to thank. You might want to pick one person and send them a card.
I used green patterned origami paper and cut it to fit the front of my cardstock that I had folded in half. I then cut a smaller white piece of paper using my ruler and pencil. I used yard to "hang" the letters on. Make sure your yard pieces can wrap around the edges to the back of the white pieces of paper. The pieces of paper for the message were 3/4 of an inch thick and about 2 inches long. Decide how long you want them to hang down and fold the extra over. I wrote on the front of each piece using a fine point black pen. Fold the paper over the yard and glue the back and front together. I chose to then glue the letter to the card base, but you would not have to. Glue the extra length of yarn to the back side of the white piece of paper, then glue that to the origami paper.
My prayer is that you can see God's care for you during this time of sheltering in place. Continued blessings.