November 1 2021

By: Jackie Naginey Hook
Monday, November 1, 2021

This month our theme is “Grace and Gratitude.” I often say that grief and gratitude are two sides of the same coin – when we lose what we’re grateful for we grieve. So where does that leave grace? In her book, Singing Beyond Sorrow: A Year of Grief, Gratitude and Grace,” Carole Marie Downing shares her journal entries from the year following her husband’s death. In the introduction she writes, “Each and every moment of a year has passed, filled with grief or filled with gratitude, and what flows in and out of all those moments is grace—the inexplicable awareness that there is something greater within these moments that weaves them into one larger tapestry of life.” This month we’ll explore these concepts of grief, grace and gratitude.

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