To give thanks to God is to worship Him. If you ask me what my favorite Holiday is, I will tell you without thinking twice that it’s Thanksgiving. It’s my favorite Holiday not just because it’s during fall—my favorite season—or because of all the delicious Thanksgiving food, but because it’s a lovely reminder to pause, look back, and thank God for everything and everyone He has blessed me with.  

I didn’t have my first proper Thanksgiving celebration until I was fourteen. There is no dark or tragic reason for that; it’s just that, growing up, it wasn’t a thing in my country of origin, Panama. But now, it’s become a special celebration in my household.

Seventeen years have passed since that first Thanksgiving meal I had at fourteen. As I get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving this year, I can’t help but wonder how fourteen-year-old me would react if she was told about the countless blessings coming her way in the next seventeen years.

The science of giving thanks

According to Emmons’s theory, gratitude consists of a two-step process:

• Acknowledging a good thing in our life
• Acknowledging there is a source to this good thing in our life

This theory reminds me of my favorite story in the Bible about gratitude.

The tenth percent

When Jesus healed the ten lepers, He didn’t do it like He had healed other sick people by laying hands on them. Instead, He told them to go straight to the priest so they could be declared clean. All ten of them expressed their faith in Jesus. They did as they were told, the leprosy cleared on their way to the priest. However, only one of them expressed his gratitude.

The gift of gratitude

When the grateful leper returned to thank Jesus for healing him, he got something the other lepers didn’t: a moment of intimacy with Jesus. Gratitude draws you closer to Jesus and strengthens your relationship with Him. This Thanksgiving let’s not just focus on giving thanks for our blessings but also on the One who blesses us.

 “He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him…” – Luke 17:16