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Faith in Parents
The Faith in Parents podcast is all about helping families raise children for Jesus. On this stream, you’ll find episodes for parents, presented by Ed and Amy, that cover all the issues we think are important today. We’re not trying to give you the answers, but a few starting points. We hope and pray you’ll be inspired to give it a go. Every family can.
Ed Drew is the Ministry Director and Founder of Faith in Kids. He has worked with children and families for more than 20 years. He is the author of Raising Confident Kids in a Confusing World, Meals with Jesus, The Wonder of Easter and The Adventure of Christmas. He is married to Mary and they have three children.
Amy Smith is the Resources Writer and a Speaker for Faith in Kids. Amy has worked with children and families for over 20 years and is passionate about teaching the Bible to children faithfully, simply and creatively. Amy lives in Liverpool with her husband Ste and their four teenagers.
Faith in Parents
Looking to God #2 | Growing Gratitude in our Children with Anika Lillicrap
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This one is all about that attitude of gratitude. We're going way beyond forcing our cherubs to say 'thank you', this is a deep dive into raising our children to have thankful hearts. Scientifically proven and Biblically approved... Thankful kids are happier kids. Fact!
Dr Anika is back and this one is her favourite topic. She takes us on the three step gratitude journey:
See it!
Savour it!
Say it!
Ed is doing it in an Aussie accent, Amy can do it with just a glass of water and Anika is riffing off the sound of music, while her dog wees under the stars.
And our favourite line, "Every good thing comes from God with a label that says 'I love you'".
Anika lives in Cambridge with her husband Matt, their six children and lively chocolate labrador. She works as a pastoral counsellor and tutors for Biblical Counselling UK. Having previously worked as a doctor she is now training in child and adolescent psychotherapeutic counselling. In her spare time she likes to crochet or write poetry.
Find out more about Looking to God: Mental Wellbeing in the Psalms.
I think of of gratitude as holding hands with sorrow but pushing fear away. We had a similar situation where we were going on a grumpy walk the other day. The walk wasn't grumpy, the child was. I remembered in the sound of music, there's that song, isn't there, my favourite things? And that is essentially just a list of all the good all the good things that they enjoy when they're in the middle of a scary thunderstorm. But we decided to write our own version. I was like, tell me about some of your favourite things. We wrote his version of his favourite things. Um and it helped him just savour what was good and and remember that all the things that he was mentioning in his list, in his little song, um came from God, and God is good to him.
SPEAKER_00Hello, this is the Faith in Parents podcast. We're back in our series of Looking to God, Mental Well-being in the Psalms. It's absolutely great to be in this series. We're already hearing how popular people are enjoying what we're doing, and I think it's particularly about mental well-being rather than the shirt I'm wearing or Amy's permanent cheerfulness. Uh, Amy, why do you think people want to hear more about mental well-being?
SPEAKER_02Uh, I think because as parents, uh, we love our kids, we want them to do well, and uh we want them to thrive and flourish and all of those things, and we're aware that this is a challenge. Um, this is an increasing challenge for our children. Uh, I think we feel, we all feel like life is a bit more stressful, and then we think, is that really true? Is that really the case? And we wonder um what we can do and is this different, and what does it look like as Christians to respond? Um, so I think I think we're we're keen for help and we're keen for people to talk to us about this stuff. And Ed, that's why we are here. We want to help, and we want to help not by saying, guess what? We're really clever and we know the answers. We want to help by saying, Hey guys, this is just another area of life where we get to trust the Lord, learn more about Him, and um and connect with Him. Uh and that's why this series has been so exciting because God got there first. He knows us, He loves us, He knows how we flourish, He knows what's good for us, and He's written down in His Word great truth for us to hold on to in the toughest of times, the hardest of days, and the best of days. So, Ed, we're off on an adventure today with the lovely Anika. Anika, could you welcome back. If you've not heard Anika before, you can go back and find her in our back catalogue. Anika, thank you for coming back to talk to us. Tell us a little bit about you, um, your family life, um, something fun that makes us realise that although you're intimidatingly clever, you're just a normal, lovely human like the rest of us. Um, I want to know your favourite biscuit, Anika. And then why are we here today? All of those things.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Well, I'll start with the favourite biscuit. Biscoff is actually what just came to mind, although I don't know if it has always been my favourite, but right now that's what I'd have if I was dipping into biscuit.
SPEAKER_02Have you had biscoff spread on toast?
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. In our family, it has been eaten out of the jar.
SPEAKER_02Oh, very good. It might be the new Nutella, you know. Anyway, sorry, Anika, carry on with the rest.
SPEAKER_01So, yes, it's great to be here. Thanks so much for having me back. Um, what about me? I'm living in Cambridge. Um, I'm wife um to Matt, who uh has a role heading up UCCF. Um, I'm mum to six kids who currently range from 17 down to 10 in age. Uh used to be a doctor, but now I'm working more in pastoral counselling and training to be a child and adolescent psychotherapeutic counsellor, which is a bit of a mouthful, um, and also working as a biblical counselling tutor. Um, yeah, so um a member of a church as well. Um formerly not doing a huge amount in church, but help on Sunday school um a bit from time to time.
SPEAKER_02And Anika, I'm so glad you told us about the biscoff first, otherwise we would just be intimidated by all of those things you've just mentioned. But thank you for being back. Ed, tell us what are we talking about today? What's our theme?
SPEAKER_00I think this is exciting actually. We uh we're in the theme of gratitude, and I think the reason why this is so good is it's impossible to imagine a downside to it. Uh, it's one of those things every parent in the world wants to have children who are grateful. That is not new. That is not something we've invented in the last five years, and I think everyone also is clear that gratitude is scientifically proven to be excellent, which is again a really odd thing to say. It's like saying science has proven that saying please makes us all happier or something. It's quite an odd thing that scientifically gratitude is brilliant. But Anika's going to tell us that, but we're also clearly looking at what is it that people are saying about this in schools and and is it good? And even uh how did Christians get there first? Because God is the one who gives us all. So uh Anika, could you start with with a bit of a background in this? In in you've actually done a deep dive on this topic. So not only are you a generic expert, you're a specific expert. You are a gratitude person. How how did how did that happen?
SPEAKER_01I like that description. Um, so in my studies, we had to do a literature review on some topic, and I just decided if maybe it was a bit of an itch that I needed to scratch, I was interested in why gratitude seemed to be everywhere, why they were in the stationary sections of shops, so gratitude journals everywhere, they're turning up in schools. Um so I was curious about that, um, curious about it, how it connected with that we say thank you in church all the time. Um, and also from a personal perspective, through a really tough time, I had actually found that thankfulness and practicing gratitude really had helped. So I just I I kind of had both lots of reasons for diving into it and trying to connect the theology, the Bible, what we were hearing kind of in secular psychology all together and trying to make sense of it.
SPEAKER_02Anika, would you say that this is something we find harder to do? So, like I'm thinking about like my my own children and and like some of the pressures that we see. Like we were quite happy going to Anglesey on holiday and rock pooling and doing, you know, normal, normal, wonderful family holiday things until we get back and we discover that other people have been to places on a plane with swirly slides and stayed in a hotel. So I think that's the sort of the world of primary school, what it looks like, and as our children get older, the whole comparison gap of what I see people doing on social media perhaps, or what is being shared and talked about, that suddenly my life is rubbish because I can see all these other things and this comparison gap. Um, do you think that's made it harder? Do you think that features?
SPEAKER_01I don't think it's new, but yes, I think there's always been a difference, hasn't there, between what some people have and what other people have. Um and I guess this the starting point is probably helping ourselves and our kids to see that we actually don't deserve anything. So all the things we have are gifts. So that leads to a sort of humility rather than an entitlement. But yes, it can be tricky um what to do when when you the comparison makes you feel like, oh, we have more, or oh no, we have less. One can lead to pride. Um yeah, one can lead to kind of looking down on others, um, or one can lead to feeling sorry for ourselves and feeling like, well, actually ungrateful that we don't have enough. Um so I think probably the opposites are to foster that sense of humility, that everything we have is a gift, it's all given, not deserved, we're not entitled to it. Um and one of the fruits of gratitude is generosity. So like when you see that we have more than someone else, that can lead to us wanting to share. Um and we see that in the early church as well, don't we?
SPEAKER_02And I think there's a thing, isn't it, about pulling yourself back into the moment. So even that, like when you were in that paddling pool, like with under a under a cloudy sky with your coat on as well, because it was a bit chilly, and you were moving the seaweed to find a crab and put it in a bucket, and it was all cold, and then we got home and we put our fleecy things on. At no point were any of us thinking this is rubbish, if only we were somewhere else. In the moment, wow, look at this amazing rock pool. Look at like feel the coldness on my toes and the tea from the flask and the stuggly thing and the wriggly crab, and we're all gazing in fascination at this crab in a bucket. In that moment, we can think of 10 brilliant things to be thankful for and to be amazed at. And it's just then when we then get home and someone tries to snatch it away. Oh no, no, let's remember the things that we enjoyed about that day and let's list them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, what you're describing there is yeah, I I totally agree with you. It like that, you know, that wow, and that doesn't this feel nice and like the tingliness of the water on our skin. That's about savouring, isn't it? Savouring what what what it feels like, what the gift feels like as I enjoy it. Um and it forms part of a model I've developed for cultivating gratitude to in families and interpersonally, which is which I call C savor say. Um and it's a circle rather than a line. It goes round. Um, you can start at any point and it can go in either direction. But you're describing the savour, you're savouring the moment, you're savouring the, you know, it might be the taste of the chocolate ice cream and the way it's cold as it slithers down your throat. Um, but as you savour it, you don't just savour it, you say, Mmm, this is so delicious. So there's a say, isn't there? Um, that you express, you express that that joy and that gratitude in thanksgiving and in praise. And then that helps us to see it. Or we maybe we'll start with seeing it. We we list, like you said, we can we can cognitively use our brains to think about what other different gifts we have. Um, and then we that can lead into savouring.
SPEAKER_02Okay, Anika, we did it in a rock pool. Can we do it about um a piece of toast with biscoff spread on? Because I feel like if you do it twice for me, I might it might sink in. So talk me through C, Savour, and say with a piece of toast with Biscoff spread.
SPEAKER_01Well, so you wake up in the morning and you walk downstairs and you notice that your tummy might be a bit rumbling, and you open the cupboard and you see the biscoff spread is there. So it's there. There's there's provision, food, provision, and not just any old thing, it's something delicious. So I've I've noticed it with my eyes and I've clocked it with my mind. That is there and that isn't there. It might not be there because I put it there. It might be there because dad did the shopping this week and he bought it as a treat. So there's that, oh, it came from someone. It's not just it's not just magic, it's a gift that was given by someone. So there's an appreciation that it's a gift that probably costs someone and was given with good intentions. That's the C. Um, and it involves understanding as well as noticing with our eyes. And then the savour is as I actually open the jar, I might even enjoy the sound of the lid coming off. And if it's if it's brand new with a pop of the foil on top, um, you know, dig it out with a with a knife or a spoon and begin to spread it over the bread. And the sounds that it makes, the smells that are evoking, how it kind of I probably find my mouth is watering as I'm about to bite into it, you know, these are these are things that are happening in me. They're they're embodied responses, they're physical, um, but they're also emotional. Um, and I can in link like it's about lingering in that, not just rushing it because I've got to get out of the door, but actually in ling, you know, slowing down, lingering in the sensation, in the joy of the gift that's savouring it. And then, you know, maybe someone else comes downstairs and they catch a whiff of it, and I'm like, oh, try this, it's so delicious. Come and have some. Sharing how how great it is. I might just declare the praises of biscoff to my family. You know, it's delicious. Um so, and the the reason why that say is important is is well, it seems natural, doesn't it? You actually, if someone's been out for a meal and you say, How was a restaurant? Before you know it, they'll start gushing and telling you about how good the food was. It does seem natural, but it also completes the joy. So C.S. Lewis said something about how um praise is the appointed consummation of the enjoyment, it actually increases it, and so like we actually we enjoy it more as we praise it. Um so it's just yeah, really interesting to notice that that's what it does.
SPEAKER_00Anika, thank you so much. For this session in our series, Looking to God, we we have been in Psalm 104, and Anika, this is a psalm that you you are saying you love. If I just jump to the end, we get the Psalms version of the Biscoff piece. In verse 14, God makes grass grow for the cattle, plants for people to cultivate, bringing forth food from the earth, wine that gladdens human hearts, oil to make their faces shine, and bread that sustains their hearts.
SPEAKER_02And becomes biscoff, which then goes in a jar with sugar in it.
SPEAKER_00I mean, this this psalm is is calling out the smell of bread. And it it's it doesn't just do the strengthening, it does the heart. It makes us smile when we bite through crispy bread, exactly as you're saying with a biscoff sandwich. What have you loved about this psalm? And and what do you do you learn about gratitude from this? Do you learn how God wants us to do it?
SPEAKER_01So I love the psalm for so many reasons. Um, right at the very start, there's a couple of small words that are I think crucial, and that is my. So praise the Lord, my soul, Lord, my God, you are very great, right in verse one. So this is about connecting personally, my soul to my God. And that's what gratitude does. It's about a relationship. Um, as we praise to one another, we strengthen interpersonal relationships. As we thank and praise God, we connect to Him. Um, so the Psalm begins there. Um so that's one of the things I love. Um going back to the whole see verse, I see that in this psalm. Um, so what do we see? The psalmist is talking about God and his how he sees his splendor and his power in creation. Um he lists it all the different ways that that God is sovereign, that God is powerful over the earth, over the waters, um, over the uh over the seas, the boundaries that he sets. Um so he he says what he sees, but he doesn't just say it. And he doesn't he doesn't just see it, he's he teaches us to savour it in these wonderful metaphors. Um isn't it powerful? The he makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind. He could have just said he's powerful and strong, but he doesn't. He gives us this beautiful poetic imagery that helps us to linger in it, to feel it, to savour it. And then the whole psalm is a song, isn't it? It's it's the psalmist's expression, saying how wonderful God is. And it's not he doesn't just say it to himself. I mean, he starts off talking to himself, praise the Lord, my soul. Um, then he starts to speak to God, and then he speaks to everybody else. So this saying is meant to go out. We can speak to ourselves, we can speak to each other, and we can speak to God. Um, and it all culminates in you know the very final words of of the psalm are praise the Lord. Um, it's joyful. Um yeah. I think one of the essences of of gratitude is that it's found in joyful giving and joyful receiving. And that comes from God. There's joyful giving and joyful receiving in God Himself, in the triune God, between the persons of the Godhead. They joyfully give and receive each other all the time. Um, but in this psalm, the bit that you mentioned, Ed, um, about uh giving wine to gladden human hearts and bread that sustains us and oil to make faces shine, that's not just giving just enough, not just giving what's satisfactory, that's giving abundantly, joyfully, so that it will be abundantly and joyfully received. That's the essence, I think, of of gratitude. It's about it's about joy.
SPEAKER_02So, Anika, let's imagine we're convinced, we want to see, we want to see more of God's goodness, we want to savour it, we want to talk about it. Um, and so, oh, when our kids are coming home from school and they're talking about or they've got to list the positives, they've got to say five positives in the morning, they've got to say five positives before they go to bed, they've perhaps been encouraged to make a gratitude journal. Um, how can we as Christians like go, oh no? Like, how can we lean into this and say, let's go, because gratitude, yes, it is good for you, but let's make the connection to who we're grateful to. I think, you know, help us with that making that step.
SPEAKER_01That is exactly it, isn't it? So we do want to see the good. What the schools are offering is they're not offering it for no reason. They've seen there are benefits to gratitude, um, benefits to noticing the good and and focusing on it. So we want to say yes, but we want to say yes and yes, do that and see where the gift comes from. It's about connecting the gift to the giver. So a bit like I mean, I love the sun, I love it when the sun comes out, and so does my dog. She always finds the sunniest spot and she lies in it in the house or in the garden. And but we want to trace that way of sun back to its source and not just enjoy the patch that's on the ground, but in but know that it comes from the sun. And so every gift we have hasn't just come from nowhere, it's come from a generous, kind, loving giver who delights. And so as we receive it, we can delight too, and it becomes reciprocal and it fosters this intimacy with with our with our God who gives.
SPEAKER_02When I was little, I had a book that said, Thank you, God, for my drink of water. And um I remember and I I think I was about five, and the the first page was a a child with a drink of water, and then the the glass answers back, don't thank me, says the cup of water. Thank the tap that poured the water, and then you thank you, tap, for my drink of water. Don't thank me, said the tap. Thank the pipe that carried the water from the and it traced it all the way back until we got to thank God who designed the the world well to give us the rain system and da-da-da. That was like, you know, so thank you, God, for my drink of water was the final page of the book. Now, I remember that all these years later, but that principle is sort of this arm almost in reverse. So this arm starts massive with like look at the god who's, as you said, riding across the heavens and designing the world, and we fly across space and down a waterfall, and we end up basically in a field holding a cheese sandwich, saying, This is good. Um, and I think that whole journey of who we're thanking is such is such a powerful thing because I can actually literally taste God's goodness to me. The the the God that can seem so big and so far away and so unreachable in in my and just a shout out to my fellow gluten-freeers out there, in my in my gluten-free cracker, I can still taste, even in the gluten-free nice of it, God's goodness. Ed, are you excited by this psalm?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm I'm excited uh of the three, seeing, savouring, and saying, I can get most excited, I think, by savouring. And it it this topic, I think we're all clear that gratitude in our children is gonna have to start with gratitude in us. And uh I I think probably family mealtimes can feel like, for instance, um a visit to the trough. Who you know, who's slushing their food around, who, who's got their mouth widest open, who's complaining about what food they've been given. And I I think without wanting to become a what a lovely description. Yeah, I so there is a um there is an Australian film called The Castle, and it's in Australia everyone watches it a lot, and it's it's become something of a sort of cornerstone of culture, and it's about a very funny family, and every single meal that is brought to the table, the dad says, Ah, doll, what have you done here? It's amazing, and and this repeated refrain is that whatever was presented to this father, he would be amazed and so grateful. So, when whenever I want to say this is just the most amazing food, I find it difficult not to remember the castle that I'm becoming a caricature of a sort of overly grateful dad who's never involved in the cooking, but ah doll, this is amazing. So, so that that was a very strange way of saying, as parents, we can be the most grateful and we can just enjoy things. I I like rather just telling our children that they're not thankful enough or they're moony whingy kids, we could instead just point out what we're enjoying and what we're loving, and I think there is something of an inner child in that. So I I I think perhaps I I'm the first to get excited in my family, and my children roll their eyes and say, Dad, it it really is just a beetle, rather than no, look, let's all come down and look at it. Look at his legs. No engineer could design a beetle this good, dad. Honestly, we've got to play football or something like that. But uh so so savouring is something I can massively get on board with. Probably seeing, I I I think it's difficult. Uh Anika, how you're you're a mum of six. You've you've done the deep dive into gratitude, but you're also trying to work out how how you get a culture of it in your family. How are you modelling it without just a lot of eye rolling and we know what you're doing, mum?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think it does connect with what you were just saying, Ed, about about joy and about savouring. Because grat you have we haven't actually said what is gratitude. It's quite hard to actually get a handle on. Some people think it's a feeling, uh, some people think it's a virtue, some people think it's a practice. Or a duty. So like what it is is is hard, hard to define. And I think it does, it takes in thinking. The C Save a same order is helpful because it takes in what we think about it, the cognitive, it takes what we feel, sort of affective, and it's expressive as well. So that's the say part. And so I think the precursor to it is shared joy. So little babies do not have the cognitive capacity to understand the difference between someone else and themselves. And they can't really appreciate that it might have cost someone something and it's a gift from somebody to them. All of that comes as they grow older. You know, by the age of about four, they can really start to understand those different facets of what a gift, what receiving a gift is like and what it means. But prior to that, they can still experience joy and they can experience it in relationship with their caregiver, with their family. And so shared joy is a precursor to gratitude. So whatever age children you've got, if you delightfully give and they joyfully and delightfully receive, you are there cultivating a ground for gratitude. And so lots of shared joy, I think, is this the flower bed, if you like, or yeah, the seed where this is going to grow. The family culture might be the flower bed. Um and gratitude grows over time as children learn to understand and appreciate more. But you definitely need joy as a precursor.
SPEAKER_02So I I'm loving the call. Um I'm a bit like Ed. I'm the irritating family world leader on everything is amazing. Let's go. And even on the grumpiest walk to school on the rainiest of days, uh, you know, look at this. You know, listen to the sound of the rain dropping on the big fat leaves, and look, let's jump in a puddle and let's, you know, avoid the cracks and all of those things. Um, because I know it helps me first, um, and then it helps my children. Um, but Anika, it does feel easier to do. Uh, it feels easier to be grateful on a sunny day. It feels easier to be grateful when there is biscoff in the cupboard. Um, how can we try and build that sense for our own hearts and our children's hearts of the sort of gratitude on a hard day in in tough times?
SPEAKER_01I think that is one of the dangers, isn't it? That we can sort of use gratitude as a panacea to to cover over the hard things without engaging with them. Um and so I would want to say that we don't have to do that. Like it's completely possible to be to be sorrowful yet rejoicing, as the Bible says, you know, to have sadness and um gratitude together. Uh it doesn't one doesn't diminish the other necessarily, but they can they hold hands, if you like. Um so I think I would say that with gratitude, the relationship is often that we're grateful for something and we're grateful to someone. Um, but when we're when we're in a really difficult day, maybe there's a really hard thing coming up, or for us this week, our dog got really sick, and we weren't grateful that she was sick, but we could be grateful in the situation, we can be grateful in the circumstance for the good that we did have, that Matt had a free morning to take her to the vet, for example, and that the vets were helpful. Um, and so yeah, I wouldn't I wouldn't want to say that we we use gratitude to pave over sorrow. Um, we we want to look at sorrow, not foreclose on it, not deny it. Um, but gratitude can hold hands with sorrow. Um, interestingly, though, it pushes fear away. I don't know if you want me to go go into this, but yes, do I'd love that. So, like with anxiety and with fear, I think of what it says in Philippians 4, 5 and 6. Um, some people don't like that verse because it starts with what sounds like a reprimand when you have the do not be anxious about anything. Um but if you read the the words just before that, you have um the Lord is near. So we start with the Lord is near, and the the do not be anxious is is not really a command, it's it's more like a strong invitation. You need not be anxious because the Lord is near in everything. Present your requests to God with thanksgiving and the peace of God which passes all understanding will, dot, dot, dot. So you have this there's an element of thanksgiving there, which is saying, because the Lord is near, you can you can not be anxious. You I'm inviting you not to be anxious with thanksgiving. Come to me, present everything to me, and there is peace that will follow. And so I'm I'm just I'm quite a pictures visual person, so I I think of of gratitude as as holding hands with sorrow, but pushing fear away.
SPEAKER_02Amazing. I'm going to land this in the reality of parenting. Yeah. So um, I'm just thinking uh one of one of my kids having a tough time and struggling with a lot of fears. Um, and this has been a sort of ongoing issue. I'm worried about you know these tests that are coming up, and I'm worried about and what other people think of me, and these things can crowd in. Um, so there that this is an ongoing struggle. So if I just keep saying, well, never mind, you've got a good friend, and oh well, never mind, think of the positives, you can do this, this, and this. And um, all I'm doing is is sort of ignoring and distracting and sort of minimising. Whereas if I could say, Yes, that's hard, yes, this is difficult, yes, I can see this as making you sad, yes, I can see that this is making you worried. And as you've just said, in this sadness and in this worry, this could get to a point of being overwhelming if we only stay here. So we love being outside, we love feeling, uh savouring, seeing all of those things, um, nature, and it helps distract from all the things that can feel quite big. So we're gonna go for a walk and we're going to look at the trees, and we're gonna feed the birds, and we're gonna look at the birds, and then as we're doing all those things, it's helping us notice the things that perhaps have been minimized by how big our warriors got. So these birds are fed and provided for, and like they're not the little tweety-tweety birds that sit, you know, cute, don't have big needs. It's a massive heron, like that's a hungry bird, and God provides enough food for that huge thing to find a nest and to be fed. And that suddenly I'm realising that, you know, this is the God who provides, this is the God who is with me, this is the God who has created the world around me, and can if he can manage all of those things, then suddenly I'm feeling a little bit more settled in the worries and the fears that I've had. I've not pretended that they're not there, but the gratitude for what I'm seeing around me and what is telling me about God is helping to sort of put them in the right perspective.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's like you're wearing gratitude glasses. You you go out with with these, you put the lenses on that look for the gifts around and what God is up to. Um, we had a similar situation where we were going on a grumpy walk the other day. Uh the walk wasn't grumpy, the child was. Um, and uh we ended up playing, so we're we're I'm always trying to work out for you know games and ways that we can playfully weave in these things into ordinary life. And so it came into my mind, I remembered in The Sound of Music, there's that song, isn't there? My favorite things. And that is essentially just a list of all the good, all the good things that they enjoy when they're in the middle of a scary thunderstorm. It does the first thing, it does the seeing, and it does some of the saying and savouring as well, but it doesn't point it to God in the song. But we decided to write our own version, me and my my youngest son, as we were going for a walk. I was like, tell me about some of your favourite things. And so we did. We wrote his version of his favourite things, um, and it helped him just yeah, savour what was good and and remember that all the things that he was mentioning in his list, in his little song, um, came from God, and God is good to him. And so he had it it lifted the grumps, it definitely did. The walk ended up okay.
SPEAKER_00We're doing brilliantly at just understanding how we can put gratitude into everyday life. We've understood that it it can start with us, so maybe our role as a parent is to is to see. Maybe our role is to see, and then you've essentially handed over the savouring to your child. It's you've both just given us stories of being on a walk. So, and and that's what Psalm 104 does. Psalm 104 is a song as we walk around the world. He spots birds, he spots mountains, he spots rivers, he spots the sea, he spots flames, he spots wind.
SPEAKER_02And Ed, he spots how they're all in the right place. So so the the if the river is on top of your head, it's it's not as calming, but like look how God has designed everything. It's all in the right place.
SPEAKER_01Sometimes it's our children that help us see. So I definitely, as a busy parent, you can be rushing from one thing to the other, or you can feel resentful that you've got to do this journey to go and collect someone who's not very well. This happened to me a little while ago. Um, and on the way back from the journey in the car, my child's looked out the window and started looking at the clouds. I was like, look, mum, that one looks like Maui's hook. That one looks like, you know, they were the one that was seeing. Things in nature, actually, it was. Um, but it it changed my perspective. It helped me put on the gratitude glasses. But in this case, it was the child helping me. And so that's the other beautiful thing about it. It's it's interpersonal and it's uh like co-regulating. When one of us starts to be joyful and grateful and engage with the Lord, it affects the other. And so, as parents, we can allow our children to teach us. I mean, it toddlers always say, Look, mummy, look, look at this, look at this. They're the one likely to spot the beetle, aren't they, Ed? Maybe you and the toddler together are the beetle spotters.
SPEAKER_00Um and and definitely, if you've got a toddler, I've told a story before. I remember walking past a river along a river holding the hand of my tiny child, and my tiny child saying, Look at that, and look at this, and look at that. And I remember saying, We're in a rush, we've got to get to the shop. Unfortunately, you know, near the end of this journey, I realized this journey, this walk, this river was way more important and way more exciting than the shopping trip that I thought we were late for. And I I do think the toddler years of oh, why? Oh why, why, why, why, you know, all the whys and the why do we have to do this? And no, I'm not in a rush, and you're late, we're late, we're all late. And pounding fists. The toddler years are a year of seeing amazing things and being struck by them. And taking time to savour. Because clearly, when you get to the teenage years and you're the only one left seeing or savouring, and it's just dad, please, can we just stop looking at beetles for once?
SPEAKER_02They love it really. They might not tell you, but they love it really.
SPEAKER_01There's a game that you can play that will last all the way through life, though, that isn't just for toddlers, and that's what we call it spot the mercies. So it's similar. It's it's you know, um, in Lamentations it says the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. So there's a promise in that that every morning when we wake up, there are new mercies, new gifts from God, new graces peppered through our day, and we might not have seen them yet. Um, so it's like going on an ice by, and we can you can either begin at the beginning of the day and look through, or you can get to the end of the day and you can look back and you can think, what mercies can I spot, or did I spot? Um, and we do that sometimes together as a family, um, round the table. Um, what mercies did you spot today, especially when we're feeling really gloomy um or like negative about what we've got to face? His mercies never come to an end. So let's spot them. They're there.
SPEAKER_00Anika, in your introduction, you you said that you think you personally learnt the value of gratitude in a particularly difficult season in your family. Uh Amy has just shared that she is understood. It's it's not sort of overcoming, and you've but you've clarified that too. It's not it's not just we sort of bash the sadness with gratitude until finally we get there. It seems like there is something of an art of how we lift our eyes to God. You you said we don't, I think you said pave over the sadness. You know, we don't just crush the sadness with gratitude. Did did you learn a few lessons in in a really sad season that might be more than just a grumpy day or a sad walk of how you do this gently and kindly?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and the gently and kindly and repeatedly, I think, can be quite important. So, I mean, we don't want to be forcing habits that just feel like, I don't know, imposed routines or rituals. Um, but sometimes practices and habits can shape desires and delights that can go that way. So, I mean, we have because we don't have grass in our garden, we take our dog out in the evening to do a wee before we put her to bed. And sometimes it's cold out there, sometimes it's raining, sometimes she takes ages, and I'm standing there shivering, and I'd rather go back inside. But we I have to take her out, one of us does. Um, and it could just, you know, it might only be five minutes. But we're standing out there on the grass in the dark. And what I often found, especially during that hard time, was that as I was standing there, my eyes would, I'd look up, I'd look up to the sky. Um, and sometimes the moon would be really bright, or there'd be a cloud half covering it, or I'd notice some stars. And for me, that was actually a metaphor of what you're describing, this kind of practice of looking up and gently encouraging myself to do that. Sometimes even, not gently, sometimes forcing myself to do it. Um, looking up, seeing, seeing what God is giving. Um, so when things were really tough, I did I actually had a little diary next to my bed and I tried to write down, even just one, I tried to write down three things I was grateful for in the day before I went to sleep every night. And it helped me sleep better. It made me realize God hadn't stopped being good. He hadn't gone away. And so all the evidence that you mentioned at the beginning about cultivation of gratitude leading to feeling better, decreased anxiety, better sleep, more resilience, greater motivation. There's lots of studies that show all of that. But I think we kind of get that as a um it's second hand, it's like we get it as well. It's a it's a byproduct of the real goal of gratitude, which is to draw us closer to God and help us enjoy Him more. So it's it's a sort of wonderful side effect, if you like.
SPEAKER_02And I I think I've noticed, and like Anika, maybe maybe you'll tell me this is interesting, and I've noticed this too, or I'm off to study this more. But I think I've noticed as as our kids get older, for our younger kids, that sort of wonder at the world is easier for them to find. And um, you know, yes, we keep talking about it, and yes, all the things that you've said, we we keep going, keep going with as they get older. But I think as as our kids get older, we start to help them notice the sort of relational goodness that they see around them. So the person that was kind or the good thing that happened, or like I remember um my my son struggling with school just feeling awful and hard all day. Um, and a friend was talking and was just saying to him, I like we need to find, we need to find the moment in the middle of lunchtime that is good. Um, and the conversations that we'd had um were like, where are you and what are you doing? And when he um you know, open your lunchbox and what do you see? Um, and uh him describing, well, there's a bagel in it, and there's um some salt and vinegar crisps. And um, oh well, why is there a bagel? Well, there's a bagel because I don't really like I don't really like wraps because they stick them the top of my mouth, and I don't really like the sandwich because it's all like fluffy and it just like it's dead dry, so a bagel just I prefer a bagel and salt and vinegar crisps are my favourite, and it just unpacking that to like well who knew that and who remembered that and who put that in, and like suddenly in the middle of a hard lunchtime, when is anyone going to sit next to me and am I gonna have anyone to play with? I'm looking at my lunchbox and going, somebody loves me, somebody knows what I like, and they've put it in my lunchbox, and suddenly I'm feeling loved and special in the middle of a hard lunch time, and that perhaps that reminds me that if God has put me in a family where people love me and know me, and this is a picture of how much more does He love and know me, and mum isn't here to hand me my total figure to Chris, but God is with me as I now go out into playtime to go, how am I going to cope with that? It's just it's just trying to sort of weave some of this in um and help our kids.
SPEAKER_01The gifts I think that our children value might change according to their ages, but every single gift comes with a gift tag from God that says you are loved. So as soon as you start to say, How come that's there? and and who put it there and who knew and and and and why? Why is that good thing in your life? Then they start to identify it as a gift and start to be able to read the message from the gift tag. Um, yeah. So we can have it in creation, we can have it in a bagel, in a pack lunge, um, we can have it in a really funny video that someone sent us on on or you know, or that someone shared on Instagram or something, um, as they get older. It can it can the gift can be in many forms or places, but it what does the gift tag say? It says you are loved.
SPEAKER_00And you're talking about the the value of repetition and routine. So so perhaps there is a lesson in this that rather than waiting for the huge difficulty when we suddenly start trying to be grateful. Uh I'm not the first one to suggest you you you can make it so that every night before bed we thank God for five things each, and we just search for where the good things have been each day. And uh I remember with squidgy little kids, you you you know, you start to squeeze knees and and arms and and thank God for what we've done with these today. Squidge, squidge hands and squidge your lips, and work out how we're thanking God. And that and Christians are the ones who start a meal with thanking God for food. We so that that might be a more normal way, and thanking God before bed might be a more normal way. But if that's just in the routine and the background of life, then it means we can start to spot it elsewhere, and we can start also in sad moments to c to just get clear. This is why we're thanking God because He the the good things are just keeping on coming, even if we're finding it hard to see them right now, while also acknowledging what is sad. Anika or Amy, other Anika, you start. Are there just is is there just a habit? You've given us you've given us weing with not weing with your dog. You've given us your dog weing, you're thanking God while they're weeing. That's a great routine and odd, but thank you for sharing it. Is is are are there any other routines you notice in your family that just make this effortless and simple?
SPEAKER_01I can share one that I I just thought of when I was thinking about doing this with you, and that was um a family I knew had a a kind of caterpillar that they made on the wall. And so at dinner time they would just stick another circle. It didn't even have to be dinner time. Anytime during the day, they could they could stick another like circle that added to the body of the caterpillar. Um, and so it became a kind of gratitude caterpillar. Each circle was like a post-it note with something to be thankful for, and it built up the length of the caterpillar that ended up being across the whole wall. Um, and what was quite nice about that is it became a record of things that they were had been grateful to God for last week, not just what they're grateful to God for now. Um so that was quite fun. Um and I think yes, yes, saying grace, but you can get used to just saying thank you, God, for our dinner, can't you? So go one step further, add another comment in the prayer that's involving savouring it. Like, I love the way, I love the crunchiness of these carrots. You know, thank you, God for them. It just takes it one step further rather than being just words that our mouths are uttering, our hearts have become a little bit more engaged. Um, that could be another one. And and doing it in church. Like we weren't made to just do gratitude solo. It's it's meant to be interpersonal. Um, I'm thinking that it's as actually where we're headed, right? The new creation, um, the angels are around the throne singing praises and gratitude and thanks to God. And we're gonna join them one day. So when we when we get together with God's people and we sing to one another and to him, we're we're we're doing what we were made for and what we will be doing in eternity. Um so there is there is something about the ordinary just of of just turning up at church and and and singing and praying with hearts engaged that prepares us for that thing that is actually you know extraordinary. Um I great, love, love all of those things.
SPEAKER_02Um I would I think I would I would just I would just add that as families when we're trying to build this sort of uh gratitude, gratitude attitude, but grateful to God um attitude, like we're as families, we can often feel as a Christian family, you can feel a bit bonkers compared to the rest of the world. You know, like not everybody else, you you know, you have the friend round for tea, and then we're about to pray at the beginning before we eat. Or, you know, there's the moment when you know we realise that not everybody is listing all the reasons that they're thankful to God before they go to bed. And that's one of the reasons that God has given us church. So in church, as families together, we can talk to one another about like the caterpillars or the prayer times or the things that are helping our. Families um cope with this, but also there is a bit of a tendency for us to all get together and have a bit of a whinge. So we can all, as parents, have a whinge about what's annoying about our kids, or we can have a whinge about, but we could feed in one another a thing that you know, and here's what I've seen God do this week, and here's what I've seen, and it's not to pretend that life isn't difficult and your kids aren't annoying and things aren't exhausting. You can see all of those things too, but let's not miss out the gratitude element of the conversation. And I would love to give us all a challenge that when you're travelling home from church in the car, no matter how church has been, maybe you didn't like the songs, and maybe you thought the guy that was speaking was too long or not enough jokes, or who who knows, we can all still list five things that we are grateful for about our church. So this is something that we've tried to do as a family. And one day I was pushing my kids to like give me five things that was good about church today, and we had the most amazing conversation because one of the kids talked about the biscuits. So the rest of church was apparently rubbish, but the biscuits at the end were good. So I'm looking across at dad, who's about to erupt at you know, how dare you be so disrespectful to the person who's put all that time in to prepare a sermon and you know, would you like to do that every week? And and I'm just going, doing the no, no, let's not. We're going with biscuits. We can go with biscuits. If the only thing that's good about church is the biscuits, let's go. Who bought the biscuits? Why did they buy those biscuits? Uh when did they buy those biscuits? And how did they put them out? And why do you think they chose those ones? And like, oh, can you suddenly see how this is somebody who is serving the Lord with love, is thinking about others, wants you to enjoy church, wants people to have the good biscuits at the end, has sacrificially given, you know, if it's fine. If the only thing that's good about church is biscuits, church was still good because that was somebody showing you God's love and kindness.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So it doesn't just become about biscuits, does it? It becomes about personal connection, care, love, gifts, um, showered from a loving giver. Yeah, exactly. And it's just asking those little questions, isn't it? Following following the trail back to the sort of thing.
SPEAKER_02Anika, I do apologize as the wife of a minister. Just you know, but that's life. That's life's parents.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, I'm all up for good biscuits and good coffee.
SPEAKER_00Anika, thank you. Uh Anika, we're drawing to a close and uh we'd love you to pray in just a moment. We're looking forward to the next episode as well. It's another one of those topics that feels like every parent wants it. Next episode, we're looking at building resilience. We're going to be joined with Jean, who's had a lifetime of understanding how to build resilience in children and young people, perhaps particularly those who are finding it too difficult and too hard to keep going. We all want resilient children, just like we all want grateful children. So that's an episode you'll want to join us for as we continue to look to God on a journey of mental well-being in the Psalms. It's good, Amy, that God got there first. Thank you. And Nika, could you give thanks? Could you pray for our gratitude? Thank you.
SPEAKER_01I will. Oh, Heavenly Father, it's even difficult to know where to start because you are such a generous God who gives us so many good things. Um, your making of all things in the beginning was giving. You gave us this world, you've given us everything we've needed, and you continue to give. And you've given us Jesus, and you give us uh his presence uh in our lives every day. Um you give us um you give us assurance that we are going to be with you forever. And you are so abundantly generous that every day your mercies are new. And so we praise you, and we ask you to help us to see all the good things you give us and that come directly from you or through others. And we ask you to help us to savor them, to really feel and engage and enjoy them, and to do that to enjoy you. We pray that you would help us to be creative in the way we express our joy and gladness, and that we would know that the gratitude you're fostering in our hearts is for our good and for your glory. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Anika. You're also with me. I look forward to the next time we get you. Thank you. Uh see you next time. We're all about being resilient. Thank you. Let's be grateful this week. Bye bye.
SPEAKER_01Bye bye.