More from John Tesh

Tonight I was listening to John Tesh (again), and he told me (and lots of other people) this (paraphrased):
There is a new iphone application where you can keep track of the things you are grateful for. Every day you add 5 things, and you can rate them on a star system. The creator of the ap got the idea after her husband passed away, and she figured that keeping track of the good things in her life might help. Turns out there is research that actually supports this: keeping a "gratefulness journal" corresponds with people feeling happier.
Which got me thinking. Two summers ago, I felt like I couldn't go back to Whitworth for my senior year. I felt especially like I couldn't do a senior project, couldn't throw myself into hundreds of hours of work on any one thing when life was shattered around me and I could barely stay in the lane driving. But God (and my mom) gave me an idea that I felt like I could do: create a bunch of dances about things for which I was thankful. It just felt more meaningful to be grateful for some things than mad about others. I found this quote a few months later, and put it in the program of my senior project, Thanksgiving:
"One act of thanksgiving made when things go wrong is worth a thousand when things go well."

- St. John of the Cross

That idea got me back to school, got me through senior year. Several hours a day for almost 9 months I spent thinking about the things for which I was grateful. My life was wrapped around the best things in my life: the time I had with my family, the way my friends could make me laugh till I cried, the hope I had for a future in which things would inexplicably and impossibly work out okay.
That idea, to make a "gratefulness journal" in dance (which is my language, way more than English is my language), was the gift of light in the darkness for almost a year. The woman who made that iphone ap must have felt similarly grateful for her idea, so grateful that she wanted to share it with as many people as possible (and maybe make some money of it, too). I don't ever ever ever want to write a book about grieving, but I do want there to be some way for people to know that it could help to keep track of the things they are thankful for. And if you can get totally absorbed in those things, all the better. So I'm glad John Tesh said that tonight. Well done.
p.s. I linked to the video of my senior project a while ago. It's not quite the same thing as it was in person, but I am thankful for it nonetheless. It is here.