Recently on Facebook, I had a friend post a challenge for everyone. I already do this but I think most of us need to be reminded to do it every day of their lives. Her challenge was to think of just one thing every day this month that you are thankful for and post it in your status.
Easy you say? Well, you are wrong. The longer you do it, the harder it gets. Oprah, a few years ago, had a show on gratitude and challenged everyone to do much of the same thing. I started doing it years ago - back when I was in college and wondering if I was ever going to reconcile with my family again or forgive my father for being an alcoholic and my mother for being passive aggressive and my family for not believing their own sister.
After a while, I learned that giving thanks or saying gratitudes changes you. It makes you see the little things and believe me, there are days you have to really search for a gratitude. It forces you to look for everything good in your life and yes, even when things are at the worst, there are good things there - things to be thankful for. It's those bad things that you handle that make you what you are and teach you how to go on each day, sometimes each hour, and sometimes each moment, looking for something good. So even those bad things turn into good things.
Now I take the rosary and at night, I alternate saying the Hail Mary with saying a gratitude. Those of you who are familiar with the rosary know there are 5 sets of 10 or 50 Hail Mary's, so I instead say 25 Hail Mary's and 25 gratitudes. Every single time I do this, my outlook and attitude change for the better. I am more appreciative of what I have.
Yes, even now as I am parked on my rear, I am grateful that I am alive and have a wonderful husband who anticipates my needs and helps me while I am laid up. I am grateful the Lord decided to keep me around a wee bit longer. I am grateful I have you my readers, to read the writings of a sometimes rambling woman. I am grateful I have chosen good employees who have become family and who will carry on with the offices and do a great job.
Stop and think of what makes you grateful. Look at the little things. Start small and think of one thing per day that you are grateful for. Try not to repeat. The more you look, the more your own attitude changes to that of a positive one.
Saying thank you is more than good manners. It is good spirituality.
~Alfred Painter
Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy -- because we will always want to have something else or something more.
~Brother David Steindl-Rast
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.
~Melodie Beattie
