How NOT To Play This Game

If someone is going through a really rough time, or has suffered a great loss, that is not, most definitely NOT, the time to tell them what they can be thankful for.
You, yourself, can quietly thank God for the good you know He will bring out of it,
but the other person will not be ready to hear it.
I know when things have gone really wrong for me, the last thing I wanted was for someone to tell me what I should be glad, or grateful, for.
No, that is not the time to give them a sermon on thankfulness. That is the time to give them
something to be thankful for: the silent, listening sympathy of a friend.

Two Aspects to The Game

The more I play this game, the more I realize that I am not so much looking for things to be thankful for as I am noticing them. And since I've ben playing, I've been noticing more and more of the everyday blessings so many of us, myself very much included, tend to take for granted.
So I guess there are two parts to this game:
1: Noticing, and being thankful for, the good things, no matter how small they seem
2: Looking for, and finding, something to be thankful for in the bad things, no matter how large they seem.
Mostly, it is knowing that whether a thing seems good or bad to us, God uses it for our good.