For the past two weeks, I have sat with a blank page because my mind and heart have been in so many different places and feeling so many different emotions.

I’ve been praying and praying about what I was supposed to blog about — and nothing.

To be quite vulnerable, a lot has happened over the last two weeks of my life. I’ve learned more about myself and the Lord than I have in many months combined. Through the many things that our squad has endured these last few weeks to the spiritual warfare I have personally experienced, the Lord has revealed so much to me about himself.

One morning, I was sitting on a public transportation bus and was having a conversation with one of my dear squadmates. We talked about the last nine months, things we were excited to go home to, things that we were nervous to go home to, things that have changed in us and things that our perspectives have changed on. This conversation led to one thing — an overwhelming feeling of gratitude.

Gratitude, the quality of being thankful, readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

I’ve recently been learning how to live a life of gratitude and how important it is to simply be thankful in the times of uncertainty and chaos. I sat back and instantly realized how much gratitude that this trip has stirred in me. After the things I’ve been through, seen, experienced and lived over these last nine months, I am excited to see in what ways gratitude plays a role in my life when I return home.

My perspective has changed on a lot of things since I’ve been gone, and I am interested to see how that will change my heart and behaviors once I am back in the United States.

I’ve learned a lot about what it looks like to be thankful. In times when it’s hardest to feel thankful, I have learned how to find something to be thankful for. In all honesty, sometimes when everything around you seems chaotic and terrible, it is hard to find things to be thankful for. But the Lord is so good, and when we step back, there is so much to be thankful for.

This trip has without a doubt changed more about me than I think most people realize. But the biggest thing that has changed about me is how grateful and thankful I am for this life.

I am thankful that the Lord has brought me to this place, I am thankful that the Lord has changed my life, my heart and my soul. I am thankful that he has taken me through some of the hardest months of my life to only teach me more about him and to remind me of all that I have to be thankful for.

I have so much more to learn about what it looks like to be thankful in every moment and every day, but here are a few specific things I have learned.

1. To always be thankful. To search for my gratitude. Satan sometimes blocks my vision from seeing the goodness of the Lord. He fills my mind and thoughts with lies proclaiming that everything around me is bad, but that is so far from the character of my God. He is good, which means he is good to me.

2. Be thankful for the small things. Sometimes, the smallest things are the most meaningful, like being able to take a hot shower whenever I want for as long as I want or being able to simply ask for directions and understand them. It’s the little things. I fully believe that the Lord fills my life with so many good, little things that I so often overlook until I don’t have them anymore. My list could go on for days.

3. Choose gratitude. When I choose to see the good in things, my list of bad dwindles away to nothing. When I choose gratitude, Satan has no power to trick my mind into believing that there is nothing good happening.

Life gets a little crazy sometimes. Sometimes, Satan comes in and fogs my brain and my eyes, but I’ve learned how completely freeing it is to live a life of thankfulness.

This past year of my life has been the best and the hardest, but I am so thankful for this life. I am thankful for the hard times. I am thankful for the good times. I am thankful for the things that I never thought I would be thankful for. I am thankful for the little things and the big things.

I am so thankful for a good God who is so worthy of my praise and gratitude.