Download to Color: MandalaoftheWeek.com

Lesson 217: Review of Lesson 197: It can be but my gratitude I earn.

Reframe: Gratitude is freely available, and I choose to receive it.

Suggested Practice:

Overall Approach to the Review of Lessons 181-200:

“Besides the time you give morning and evening, which should not be less than fifteen minutes, and the hourly remembrances you make throughout the day, use the idea as often as you can between them. ³Each of these ideas alone would be sufficient for salvation, if it were learned truly. ⁴Each would be enough to give release to you and to the world from every form of bondage, and invite the memory of God to come again. …

“These practice sessions … are centered round a central theme with which we start and end each lesson. ²It is this:

³I am not a body. ⁴I am free.
⁵For I am still as God created me.

Special thought for today’s Lesson: 

197: It can be but my gratitude I earn.

²Who should give thanks for my salvation but myself? ³And how but through salvation can I find the Self to Whom my thanks are due? (ACIM, W-217.1:2-3)

⁶The day begins and ends with this. ⁷And we repeat it every time the hour strikes, or we remember, in between, we have a function that transcends the world we see. ⁸Beyond this, and a repetition of the special thought we practice for the day, no form of exercise is urged, except a deep relinquishment of everything that clutters up the mind, and makes it deaf to reason, sanity and simple truth. (ACIM, W-rVI.in.1:1–3:8)

“…Permit no idle thought to go unchallenged. ³If you notice one, deny its hold and hasten to assure your mind that this is not what it would have. ⁴Then gently let the thought which you denied be given up, in sure and quick exchange for the idea we practice for the day.”

“When you are tempted, hasten to proclaim your freedom from temptation, as you say:”

This thought I do not want. ³I choose instead _____________

“And then repeat the idea for the day, and let it take the place of what you thought.” (ACIM, W-rVI.in.5:1–6:4)

---

View timelapse of the coloring of today’s mandala
on My YouTube Channel:

https://youtu.be/LwJ27hykEyI?is=VEDOf6M7WTXXN1V5

Message

Today I felt inspired to write about gratitude toward ourselves—both in our human lives and in relation to the Course’s teachings.

Have you ever stopped to thank yourself for your achievements, regardless of size? That question came to me this morning. Looking back, I realized it never occurred to me to give thanks to myself.

Today’s lesson gave me a new idea for a gratitude journal—one where I note what I’m grateful for having done for myself. Big things: earning my degree, leaving my first husband, traveling to Paris alone, building a labyrinth in my front yard. And smaller daily things: washing the sheets, exercising, decluttering the hall closet. The question I’d use to guide my actions: would my future self be glad I did this?

Thanking myself feels strange at first, but then I think: why not? I thank everyone else when they do things for me. It seems like it should be a natural part of our practice. Besides, much of what I do for myself no one else sees. Thanking myself is a way of acknowledging, “Hey, you did this. I’m glad you did.” Like taking a step forward on a project I’ve procrastinated on—no one witnesses it, but now the next steps feel easier. I can think of it as my future self thanking my current self for taking that step.

As for the Course, we’re invited to thank ourselves for choosing peace over anxiety, joy over chaos, love over fear. Also for embracing Course principles—forgiveness, salvation, recognizing I am not a body. I am free. I am as God created me. For all of that, I can be grateful because it reminds me of my Self. And in that sense, I’m earning my own gratitude—not from God or others, but from myself, for simply choosing.

“Pam Grout is a temporary identity that works for now. It’s gonna change. It’s eventually gonna die.”
— “The Course in Miracles Experiment” by Pam Grout

Blessings & Peace,

Maureen,
The Mandala Lady

transforming soul whispers into mandalas & channeled messages
for clarity, peace, and joy

 About the 2026 Mandalas of the Day — ▶️ A Note About A Course in Miracles