The congregation at Calvary Bible Church in Kalamazoo, Mich., wouldn't seem to have much to be thankful for.

In a state with one of the highest rates of unemployment in the nation, some of John Barnett's parishioners have been laid off. Others fear for their savings. But during a recent Sunday sermon, churchgoers looked across the street to see a burning apartment building.

No one was hurt, but the church members left to comfort those who had lost everything, Barnett says. Despite their own tough times, they "were thankful they were alive and able to stand next to those people," he says.

Giving thanks in tough times is a common Biblical theme, of course. But finding gratitude amid hardship is the new reality for many Americans this year as Thanksgiving nears. Some have lost their jobs, others have watched their retirement savings go down the drain, others struggle with illness or the uncertainty of sending a child to war.

"The whole climate in Michigan is a little gloomy," Barnett says. "People are going back to remembering what they used to be thankful for, when they were thankful to have a place to live, thankful for a family. It's a return to simpler things."

Pat Cooke, a 65-year-old Las Vegas resident, lost a daughter a year ago after a long illness. Now Cooke is battling mesothelioma, a rare, and in her case, inoperable, form of lung cancer.

She is staying at the Hope Lodge in New York City, a temporary home for cancer patients and their families, while she undergoes daily radiation treatments. Chemotherapy following her diagnosis in January failed to shrink Cooke's tumor.

And, yet, she says, "I have so much to be thankful for."

"I have a good support group," she says. "I have a wonderful, wonderful caregiver. ... I always try and look at the positive."

Robert Emmons, a psychology professor at University of California, Davis, has studied thankfulness and gratitude for the past decade. Emmons is the author of several books, including "Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier."

Being grateful by nature or learning how to be grateful can actually be good for your health, Emmons has found.

Grateful people report having more energy, he says. They're more enthusiastic, have fewer aches and pains, sleep better, get more exercise, have lower blood pressure and are more well-liked by others.

"Gratitude seems to energize and elevate people," Emmons says. "It's available to everyone. And it has a very large payoff for a very small investment."

Focusing on gratitude will help build up a "psychological immune system" to get us through hard times like we're seeing right now, he says.

To get started, Emmons suggests writing down five things for which you're grateful. Do that each night before bed, and it will start to become a habit.

Such a technique worked for Maureen Killoran, a 64-year-old Unitarian Universalist minister in Vero Beach, Fla. Killoran is an interim minister who travels to congregations dealing with confusion and conflict after a previous pastor has left. Many in the Killoran's new congregation are retirees worried about their homes and their savings.

"For the people I counsel, a key thing is focusing on the little things," she says. "Just keep going down smaller and smaller until you find something positive."

Killoran herself has battled clinical depression over the years. A therapist once told her to find something positive each day and give thanks. One day, she recalls, the only bright spots she found were some little flowers pushing up through the cracks in the sidewalk.

After the apartment fire, Barnett's church became a staging area for the fire investigation as well as a rescue center of sorts for the fire victims. Church members donated clothing, furniture and food for those who were displaced, he says.

Barnett thinks this year's Thanksgiving celebration will be a return to a simpler, less materialistic time.

"We're stripping back the layers and layers of veneer over our lives and families," he says. "It's kind of like refinishing old furniture. You get to that wood, and it's just beautiful."

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