TREAD IN GRATEFUL WATERS: A Gratitude Devotional and Journal Experience

By Tricia Thomas Anderson

In today’s world there’s a lot to worry about such as the disruptions of the pandemic, social unrest, financial uncertainty, and more. But with much necessity, if we hear him, the Lord reminds us that, despite it all, we have so much to be grateful for.
The beginning of a series of devotions and teachings on the spiritual fruits of righteous living, author Dr. Tricia Thomas Anderson challenges us to concentrate on thanking God for the countless blessings, great and small, that he has bestowed and reduce the urge to focus on the negative.
Reflecting on her own experiences, she leads us through a forty-two-day devotional and journal experience to encourage observable change while witnessing and expressing thanksgiving for the grace God offers daily. Tread in Grateful Waters demonstrates how to put praise, honor, worship, and gratitude at the forefront before expressing our needs and desires when we talk with and reflect on the Lord while drawing us closer to him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664261563

Tricia Thomas Anderson

Tricia Thomas Anderson earned a PhD in human development and is a career educator with more than twenty years of experience writing and teaching in higher education. A dedicated Christian with a lineage of servants in ministry, she seeks to exercise a ministry of God-given influence to motivate righteous living and encourage Christians to draw nearer to God. Anderson lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex with her husband, Patrick.

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Copyright © 2022 Tricia Thomas Anderson.

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Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-6157-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-6158-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-6156-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022905305

WestBow Press rev. date:  04/02/2024

Contents

Introduction

Gratitude Devotions

Epilogue

The Gratitude Challenge

Grateful Prompts

Light in the Darkness

Gratitude Journal

Endnotes

Introduction

February 1, 2021

At the date above, we were somewhere in the middle of a pandemic—the first since 1918’s Spanish flu and something many of us never imagined happening in our lifetime. So much was going on around us, within us, and in our homes. There was much to be concerned about and lots of uncertainty. But the Lord, with much necessity, reminded me that despite it all, we have so much to be grateful for.

About two weeks prior to the date above, with permission and through a health protocol to gain access, I went on campus to my office. I had to transport files to a new staff member and get more items I would need to continue working from home. I also wanted to safeguard some souvenirs in my office from possible destruction during a major renovation project underway in our office suite.

Before my departure, I grabbed my prayer box, which contained note sheets. I had taken the blank note sheets out and placed them on my desk years ago. Whenever I felt the need to pray for something or someone specifically while at work, I immediately stopped and wrote the prayer down that was on my heart. The notes would go into the box as my prayer request went to the Lord. One particular year, I began pulling those requests out to read and was pleasantly surprised that almost all the requests were about meeting someone else’s need. Before I left my office that day, I pulled out the first prayer note on top and the last written. However, this time, I was surprised to see my request showed a sign of distress. I pulled another, which seemed to be much earlier by the date on it, only to read what seemed like more distress. I didn’t like what I was reading because, not only were the notes evidence of some of the challenges I’d been experiencing and the length of time I’d been experiencing them, they read like near defeat.

When I got home, I continued to read more. Fortunately, as I read a few more with my daughter, Olivia, they got better. I begin to see prayers for others again. But that moment in my office made me realize that when I look back on times when I talked with Jesus, I do not want to read sadness, negativity, and defeat.

I also regularly journaled. After reading those prayers, I dared not go back to see what I’d said in my journal, where I had much more than a two-inch square of paper to write the thoughts and emotions down I’d been feeling at that time. On that day I decided that, moving forward, the words I wrote to the Lord in a journal, on a square of paper, wherever I wrote, would not be words of defeat, woe, and despair—no matter what I was going through.

Around the same time, I received an email from one of my secret mentors, Terri Savelle Foy. She’s a secret mentor because she doesn’t know she’s my mentor. Terri has been the greatest advocate on identifying mentors, whether you know them personally or not, that inspire you to reach your goals and dreams. Terri