“The word ‘appreciation’ means to be thankful and express admiration, approval, or gratitude. It also means to grow or appreciate in value. As you appreciate life, you become more valuable-both to yourself and others.”  Sara Paddison

When did you last express your appreciation to someone who played a key role in your life?

Even the animals– the donkey and the ox– know their owner and appreciate his care, but not my people Israel. No matter what I do for them, they still do not understand.  (Isa. 1:3; NLT)

Next Wednesday is a big day!!!  Hmmmm, “What’s so special about September 17th?” you may ask.  Well, next Wednesday is the one-year anniversary of our first Daily Gram.  And I’m proud to say that we haven’t missed a single issue.  Hallelujah!!!  Some days were pretty hard, others were easy and fun.  Frankly, it’s a journey that I wasn’t at all sure we were up to when I committed to do it.  But, we’re coming up on a very big milestone.  Going for two?  We’ll see.

All that is not to toot our own horn, but as a segue to express our appreciation for all of you faithful readers.  Many of you have been with us right from the start.  We truly have a very loyal bunch of friends.  We appreciate you very much.  We appreciate your loyalty; we appreciate your forwarding our DGs to your networks; we appreciate your many words of encouragement and comments; in short we appreciate everything about you.

Thinking of appreciation, I did a little research and found that the there seems to be more written about the word as it applies to increase in value rather than as an expression of admiration, approval, and/or gratitude.  It is the latter sense of the word that I am writing about here, but I really like the way Childre and Martin tie the two meanings together when they wrote in their now famous The HeartMath Solution, “Generally, appreciation means some blend of thankfulness, admiration, approval, and gratitude. In the financial world, something that ‘appreciates’ grows in value. With the power tool of appreciation, you get the benefit of both perspectives: as you learn to be consistently thankful and approving, your life will grow in value.”

Frankly, this whole line of thinking was triggered last week when Mac Anderson’s Simple Truths newsletter came out promoting the short movie which is today’s link.  I strongly urge you to invest the few minutes it will take to enjoy this little under-three-minute video.  As Mac said in his newsletter, “Whether you’re a boss, a spouse, a mom, dad, or friend, The Simple Truths of Appreciation can make you a better person. You’ll get great ideas on how you can choose to make a difference.” 

The video especially spoke to me as we have just returned from a short visit with Sharon’s Dad and Mom, both of whom are in their mid-eighties and battling with an increasing number of health challenges.  I can really relate to the touching words from the video, “…My friends are all gone.  My family’s gone.”  While it is not quite that bad for Mom and Dad, I can certainly see how the number of family and non-family calls and visits have decreased exponentially over the last couple of years.  It’s a tragic situation that we will all face one day.

Prayer Power
Dear Lord, we ask You to bring to our minds the handful of people that have made their mark on our lives and we would ask for the grace to reach out to them and express our appreciation for how they contributed to our lives.

Link of the Day
The Simple Truths of Appreciation

Blessings on you as you make a list of those you appreciate this weekend.