

Place yourself in someone else’s shoes
Sometimes in order to feel truly grateful, we need to get out of our own lives. Put our own worries and troubles aside and instead place ourselves in someone else’s shoes.
Sometimes we need to experience reality through a different lens, from a different angle or perspective. When we pay attention to those that are less fortunate than us and we just place ourselves mentally in their situation, we feel empathy and humility.
By doing this, we suddenly realize that we are just little pawns in the greater game of life. We are mere mortals at the mercy of the Lord. At any moment, we could lose everything we have, everyone we hold dear.

Humble gratitude will follow
When we stop worrying and fretting about our own problems and try to experience someone else’s, we become humbly grateful for the life we have.
We become thankful for just being alive! We feel gratitude for simple things that we would normally otherwise take for granted. We begin to count the many blessings, no matter how small, that have been sent our way by our ever-loving and caring Lord.
The Beauty of Literature
Literature is an ingenious way for average people to take off their figurative shoes and don another person’s. Books are wonderful lenses through which we can see a different world from the one we live in. They are a means of virtual reality which help us imagine an alternative way of living to that of ours. One that humbles us into gratitude for even just the simplest of things.
When we read about a young girl that has to live quietly in an attic for fear of being discovered and killed or about a person who is injured for the rest of their life, we feel humbled and small. We are thankful for what we have, and momentarily forget all that we don’t have.

Literature is a wonderful, God-given tool that helps us be less self-centered and ungrateful by letting us observe and experience what life is or was like for others.
Books are an important instrument for nurturing and encouraging humble gratitude in children. A good, wholesome book can strengthen empathy, increase humility, and induce gratitude.
Who wouldn’t want that for their child?
Beyond this, in good books, when the protagonist is presented with a great deal of adversity, we see them rise above their troubles and come out on top. When this happens, they are over the moon with joy and gratitude. This is setting a wonderful example for children, wouldn’t you agree?
“Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song. For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods.”
Psalm 95: 2-3
If you would like our Holiday Picture Book List for free, enter your name & email below.

Maria is a homeschool student currently in her last year of high school. She has a passion for promoting good, clean, wholesome and entertaining children’s books on her blog Anne’s Book Basket.
Her mission is to read and review hundreds of children’s books and recommend only the best so that parents don’t have to spend hours searching various websites for honest reviews, or pre-read every book they hand to their children. If you are interested, check out her recommendations page.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/annesbookbasket/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annesbookbasket/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/annesbookbasket/
NOTE: Not all views from guest bloggers are the views of Kerry Beck or How to Homeschool My Child.
