What is my problem with gratitude?

It is only day two of my thirty day challenge and I have smacked straight up against an intellectual problem with gratitude.

According to Merriam-Webster, gratitude is, “the state of being grateful: thankfulness". As I was thinking of the many things I could post about today I uncovered my own limit to gratitude.

Is gratitude, in and of itself, the exercise of saying "thank god I'm not like/experiencing/in need of ___________"? For example, by my expressing gratitude for my warm home, it also acknowledges that there are those without a warm home. When I am grateful for the ways in which our lives are blissfully simple, it makes me very aware of the complexities of the lives of others.

This is very hard for me to reconcile. It isn't that I want to be ignorant of the struggles of others; it is just that the enormity of the need of the world is overwhelming to this mommy in her small corner of the universe. I feel at a loss for how to reach out from the abundance of what we have been blessed with because at the same time I feel very small; that what I have to offer makes little difference. I also know that to not practice daily gratitude is to be ungrateful for even the simplest of things that we take for granted each day.

Where is the balance? When will my efforts at bettering the world ever feel like 'enough'. I can not suppose to 'fix' the world in a universal way by myself, yet shouldn't I strive for something?
I know that my own faith speaks straight to the heart of the matter, yet I can't help but feel unsettled by it all.

So today's act of gratitude is that I am thankful to be challenged in my thinking....whatever good it does for the big world outside my head!

I promise, tomorrow's act of gratitude will be something like an ode to the light bulb.