How Gratitude Has Changed My Life
Happy almost Thanksgiving beloved friends! I hope you know how grateful I am for YOU! I am so incredibly grateful for your readership, for your encouragement and the idea that I get to create for you most everyday! I wake up with a pep in my step knowing that the contribution I put out to you is making a difference in your life. I have been floored by the kind messages some of you have sent me about how me living my life has touched yours. I never ever ever, in a million years would have imagined doing what I am doing now. I am grateful for you.
I am also grateful for this entire year that has kicked my patookas! You know when you have a year that’s just super intense and hard and challenging? Yep, this year has definitely had some pretty difficult challenges for me and my family. Looking back, it has been the one of the years that has helped me grow most.
Especially in my faith and gratitude in difficult and challenging times.
This year dark times have taught me to practice gratitude and praise God no matter what: I’ve practiced gratitude as I’ve failed God in many areas of my life. I’ve been grateful even through the hardship of failing my husband and my children; in the moments when I’ve been challenged by these amazing (yet very intimidating) roles, I’ve decided to turn my worries into prayers and my shame into praise! It hasn’t been a perfect ride of gratitude. Some weeks I’ve actually even have questioned the goodness of God. But I’m human and he knows that. My doubts and questions don’t scare him! However, I’ve remained grateful even when I don’t want to be, because in the past times, I’ve exercised gratitude in difficulty AND miracles have taken place! I believe God calls us to remember what he has done in our lives. Isn’t it so easy to forget his faithfulness? I know! That’s why it’s so important to keep remembering where he has taken us from! Those solid anchoring events that have shown me he is trustworthy in the past, kept my heart with the hope this year that, this too, could be a part of his AMAZING plan to bring me to where he wants me to be! See God is always preparing us for the gorgeous future he prepared for us, but we flee at the first sight of challenge. I’m learning to see every difficulty as spiritual and emotional training!
The very act of being grateful in the midst of a storm has saved my life! It has positioned me to receive the INCREDIBLE blessings that are hidden in dark times.
I’ve practiced gratitude this year through a friendship troubles that rocked me to my core. I’ve praised and thanked God through my dad’s cancer and watching someone I love be sick and suffer. I’ve praised God through some relationship difficulties with my main squeeze. Marriage is just not all unicorns and butterflies, Doug and I have overcome some challenges and difficulty and now we are reaping the harvest of an amazing intimacy, friendship and love we didn’t have before! I’ve learned to praise God and be grateful when I got memories of the sexual assault I endured as a child. I’ve praised God and practiced gratitude in the midst of my MANY failures as a business woman. I fully believe that faith isn’t mystical. Faith is simple. It’s belief! Belief is action in your thoughts and words! And the way you believe and have faith is to remind YOURSELF of God’s truth and character. To be be grateful and believe even when you can not see. Because on the other side….. just at the tip of that storm, there is beautiful rainbow more meaningful, purposeful, more packed with the PUREST joy you’ve ever received. So hang ON FRIEND! Do not be discouraged and if you don’t already practice gratitude, really consider adding this transformative habit to your life. I believe it will transform you to something you couldn’t of imagined! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
