The One About Being Grateful For The Existence of Things - Separate From Your Direct Experience With Them

And 🥬 Cabbage 🥬

For YEARS now, when I’ve said grace over my food, I usually say the words:

Thank you Lord for this food.

Followed by the words:

Thank you for letting ME have and eat this food. 

I don’t remember how or why I started separating the two, but I do. 

Tonight, I was chopping up some cabbage, bok choy, and chard for dinner. 

And I was feeling unusually grateful for this food sitting in front of me. 

NOT because I was about to eat this food, but just the existence of the food itself. 

If I were practicing “The Gratitude Chain” tonight, there’s a LOOOOOOONG chain of people, skills, places, etc that I could get lost in while thinking about what it took for this beautiful food to get to me. 

But tonight, I was just thinking… 

These are some pretty plants. 

In the moment, I had no idea where that thought came from 🤣. 

But as I reflect back on that moment now, I’m thinking it may be (at least indirectly) tied to my accumulation of appreciation for food over the years… 

Separate from my appreciation for consuming food. 

Of course, I got to consume this food (after we cooked all the nutrients out of these beautiful plants 🫣).

And I appreciated being able to consume it as well. 

But here’s a gratitude prompt for you today:

What’s something you can appreciate the existence of - separate from your appreciation of the experience it provides you?