Focusing On Our Blessings
Today we are calling you to take action on this Tuesday! Yesterday we pointed out various different ways that we are so very blessed in this life. Today I would like you to participate in a little activity. I hope you will join me as we are going to be focusing on our blessings!
Whether you do so in the comment section, in your email to another family member or friend, or if you write it on Facebook, I would like to challenge you to list several things that you are thankful for. You don’t necessarily have to write them down, but for me, it helps to do so instead of leaving those thoughts in my head. If I write them down and see them in black and white in front of me, it seems to possess more power.
For the next week, I would like you to focus on these and other things on your list that bring you joy, love, and happiness. I am asking you to give thanks and to be grateful for the gifts you have been given in this life. Count your blessings not your troubles or sorrows. Focus intentionally on things that you truly need to praise God for, and then start doing it!! That is the key!
Are you ready to accept this challenge?
I am thankful for:
- My beautiful children that God has given to me. They are my miracles from above, and I just thank God from the very bottom of my heart for trusting me to care for these precious little ones. He gave them to me, and my soul danced with delight the day I found out I was pregnant. I was so in love with you, and my heart leaped with joy and excitement every time I would feel you move and kick inside of me. There are no words to adequately describe how I felt when my baby girls were placed in my arms for the first time. Tears of joy filled my eyes and spilled out down my cheek as I looked into your angelic faces. I counted ten perfect little fingers and ten perfect little toes. I thank God for my babies. They are now 17 years old and nine years old at the time of this writing, and my heart cherishes and treasures each and every moment that I have been given with them. They are the reason I am on this earth. They are my purpose, and they are my life! I thank God for my two miracles from above!
- My parents who gave me the best that they possibly could growing up. We were not rich by any stretch of the imagination. What we lacked in money and in material things, we were overflowing with in love, compassion, and care for one another. My parents raised me with good morals and values. They taught me to be a responsible and respectable young lady, to be a woman of great character and integrity. I am thankful for my parents loving me in the good times as well as the bad and for being my rock through the troubled times in my life. Things haven’t always been easy, but we had each other through it all. My heart is eternally grateful, and I thank God above for my parents.
- My husband who I met when we were teenagers. Although too shy to really connect back then, we thought of each other through the years and destiny brought us back together many years later. We reconnected and rekindled the spark inside of our hearts for each other. Although we have struggled through the years as most marriages do, we have realized that the love that we have is something worth fighting for. We share what most people search their whole lives for and rarely ever find. It has not always been easy, but it has always been worth it. It is a love that I will fight for and do everything within my power to ensure lasts. As God as my witness, I will not rest until I have exhausted every measure to ensure that this man knows how much I love him. I thank God for putting us back together.
- My friends. Oh, the Lord has richly blessed me with friends who are more like family. They truly are the family that I have chosen for myself. You are born with family, and then you meet people in this life that you connect with on such a deep level. They, then, become your family of choice. I love each and every one of them with a love so deep and so powerful, and I thank God for placing these beautiful souls in my life. Some friends I have had for 20 years, and I know that they will be by my side no matter what. We may not always see eye to eye, and there may be things that threaten to pull us apart from time to time. However, we always come back together. That is what true friendship is all about. I thank God that I have a hand full of people in this life that I know are my true friends and love me completely just as I love them. They are my brothers and sisters of the heart.
This list is just something that came to me right off the top of my head as my fingers floated over the keyboard and words flowed from me onto the post that you’re now reading. I have many, many blessings in this life. I am so very thankful to God for all that He has done for me and my family and friends. He is so good, ladies and gentlemen! He is so good to us. He blesses us and continues to pour out His blessings in our lives. He is worthy to be praised.
Look around you as you start to write your list. You don’t have to capture everything today. Just think of a few things that easily come to your mind. Be sure to thank God for these gifts in your life.
May God continue to pour out His blessings on your life.
Always & Forever,
Shirley
We Are Blessed
We all have struggles and trials in this life, and I am sure that there have been times when every one of us has uttered some version of the following saying:
I know that God will not give me more than I can bear. I just wish He didn’t trust me so much.
There may be times when you feel pushed to your limit. You may feel like you’re hanging on by a thread even. When you’re at your wits end and are not sure how much more you can take, know that God will not give you more than you can bear. He won’t.
Also, know this. God will be with you every step of the way, even carrying you when He needs to in order for you to make it through.
With everything that you’ve been through, know that there is someone else in the world that has it worse than you do. When we stop to consider just how blessed we truly are, our problems begin to lose their grip on us. The problems may still be there, but it helps to change your way of thinking about them. Instead of focusing on the negatives of your situation, try to think of a positive in the situation. I promise you, as bad as you think your problems are, someone somewhere else in the world has it a lot worse.
It takes a lot of effort, but when you find yourself starting to dwell on your problems, try changing your focus to something a little more positive instead. Easier said than done, but trust me. You have so many blessings in your life. You have so many things to be thankful for!
You are blessed!
I am blessed!
We are blessed!
We are so blessed in this lifetime! Why, then, do we focus only on the negatives? Why do we give them so much power over our lives? Let’s do something about that, shall we?
When your eyes open in the morning, immediately start your day with a positive thought and a word of praise.
Oh thank you, God! Thank you for waking me up this morning! Thank you for the gift of another day! Thank you for another opportunity to live my life to the fullest.
It matters how you start your day! If you wake up and begin with negative thoughts before your eyes ever open, you won’t have as good of a day as you would if you begin your day with words of thankfulness and praise.
When you wake up, take a deep breath in and thank God for waking you up with the morning light. Thank Him for allowing you to be with your loved ones another day. Some people didn’t get that extra day that you’ve been given.
When your feet hit the floor, thank Him that you can get out of bed in the mornings. Thank Him that you had a bed to sleep in last night and covers to warm you. Some people do not have this luxury.
When you walk to the bathroom to get a shower, thank God that you’re able to walk! Thank God that you’re able to do for yourself. Others have to depend on people to bathe them as they are unable to do that for themselves. Think of how blessed you are, and say a special prayer for all of those that are going through this and for the precious caregivers. Neither the patient nor the caregiver have an easy road ahead of them that day, yet here you stand under the warmth of the shower.
Don’t give into the temptation of a complaining spirit. You have much to be thankful for!
When you sit down to have your breakfast and drink your coffee, thank God for the food! Some do not have anything to eat at all. (Be sure to thank God for your food before you begin your meal. I always notice when people don’t do this and just start eating or stare at us when we get ready to bow our heads to say the blessing before we eat. Be thankful in all things … even for the food that you’re about to receive!)
Make time to read your bible or a daily devotional and pray before starting your day. I have heard people that say they just don’t have time for this. I say that you DO … you don’t have to get down on your knees every single time to pray. You can pray while you’re in the shower, having breakfast, or driving down the road going to work or school. You CAN find time. If your mind can wander to all of the negatives, you have time to gain control of your thoughts and go to God in prayer. That is when you need to re-focus your attention any way instead of remaining in a negative state of mind. You DO have time to pray! As far as not having time to read your bible or a daily devotional, that isn’t true either. There are some devotionals that don’t require a lot of time, yet their messages are powerful and will have you thinking on them all day. My husband reads Joel Osteen’s daily devotional every morning. I am partial to Joyce Meyer’s daily devotional. Jesus Calling by Sarah Young is also a very powerful daily devotional. They do not require a lot of time, yet they leave such an impact! Try it!
We are blessed in this life. If we would just take a moment or two to redirect our thoughts, it will make a difference in how our day goes! It has been proven!
Will you try it? Will you make an effort to be more positive and to start your day in a more positive manner?
Will you count your blessings instead of focusing on your troubles?
Vent To God
When you need to “vent” to someone, when things are troubling you and you feel like you just “have” to get them out, who do you turn to?
In the past, I have gone to friends or family members when I needed to talk. This has helped, especially when the person, like my daddy, listens, comforts, and loves. When others start to condemn or criticize, that is when it starts to get a little touchy. Often times you just need someone to “listen.” While I don’t expect everyone to sit quietly and take in all I’m saying without uttering a word, I would like the words to be respectful and loving that they speak to me, especially in my time of need. If I have trusted them enough to talk to them about what is bothering me, surely they could have some compassion and carefully select the words they speak back to my troubled or broken heart. And … surely what I say would be kept in the strictest of confidence when taken to a trusted friend.
That is how it is supposed to work, but unfortunately, I have learned a very valuable lesson the hard way just recently when I have taken my broken heart and placed it gently in the hands of friends. I shared things that really were hurting me and that threatened my family. I spoke openly about those things as a way to cleanse my soul by not internalizing any more. I was letting it all flow freely from me because I just had to get it out.
What happened next wasn’t pretty. I later discovered, by one friend’s admission, that she had talked privately with another of my friends. The two were almost comparing notes on what I had told them, and when one didn’t know one piece of information, the other offered it up to them. My friend admitted her part in this, even sending me the private messages shared between her and my other friend. I read through all of the messages almost in disbelief initially. Then, there were some proud moments as I read how each friend cared so much about me and really loved me. I know they were concerned for me with what had just taken place and threatened my family. I could see that in their words, but the more I read, the more vicious some of the messages appeared to be … and some times they were aimed at my beloved … while other times they were aimed right at me.
Now that it was finally out in the open, both friends have apologized to me … but it still hurts and makes me unable to fully trust again with intimate details of my life. Maybe at some point I will get past this and be able to share again, but for now, I will have to return to internalizing a lot of things.
Or will I?
It has dawned on me that when I have felt and currently feel that I have no one to talk to … why am I not turning to God? It hit me like a ton of bricks. He is the One True Friend we always have, and He loves us unconditionally. Why, then, do I trust others to go to them instead of trusting GOD by taking all of my worries, concerns, fears, doubts, and hurts to HIM?
Think about it for a moment. Why not take ALL of your worries, cares, and concerns to Him? The bible says to cast ALL of our cares on Him, yet so many times we hold them in, we fret and are consumed with anxiety over things that we feel we are facing alone. The truth is that if we’d carry ALL of our problems to God as He has asked us to, we wouldn’t feel so alone. We wouldn’t have to try to solve all of the world’s problems because we do not possess the power to do so. Some times we can’t even help ourselves with OUR problems. But I know One who can … God!
I know that a friend’s voice is clearly heard. If we call them on the phone, write a message to them, or see them face to face, we can clearly hear their tone of voice to know how they are saying it or as we’ve gotten to know them, we can pick up their “tone” even in written words. We get feedback from them instantaneously. We hear what they think and how they feel about the situation. Often times they hold nothing back, even when they should due to the impact it has on our hearts and souls. Maybe that is the attraction, the draw to sharing all with a friend. We can hear them in return.
Do you feel that the silence is deafening? When we take our problems to the Lord, do we feel that we get nothing but silence in return? Consider this. We can’t hear God’s voice whispering if we have so many distractions and don’t still our minds long enough to consider what He may be saying back to us in return. Yes, we talk to God … but consider that He wants to speak to US, too! And even if we don’t hear that still small voice right away, we begin to see His hands at work in our lives. He knows what is going on with us any way, but He wants us to come to Him. He wants to hear it all – the good, the bad, and the ugly. He wants us to trust Him.
I can guarantee you that God won’t go behind your back to talk about you. I can guarantee you that God won’t hold a grudge against the person or situation that caused you great pain either. That is yet another problem when you take things to friends or family members. When you’re hurting in the moment and you need a way to release it by talking about it, once it has been spoken and leaves your body, heart, and mind … you are able to regain your composure and work things out even better than before in your life. Yet, the friend or family member you carried your concerns to will NOT be so quick to release the feelings they have about the troubles you shared with them. If you were having problems with your husband, child, or in-laws, the friend that you went to will not be so quick to release their feelings about the situation. Long after you have moved on from that situation and things are better between you and the person, the one you went to will continue to hold on to the problem and will often times bring it back up to you, as if you needed a reminder.
I can assure you that God forgives you if you’ve wronged someone, and I can assure you that God forgives others that wrong YOU, too, if they ask. Yes, the one you initially had problems with where you needed someone to talk to about what was going on … and yes, even the one that talked behind your back with your other friend about your problems. If they ask for forgiveness and truly mean it with their whole hearts, God will forgive them, too.
We are all children of God, and He loves each and every one of us with the same unconditional love. It doesn’t matter what we’ve done, while it may break His heart to see it, I believe He will still forgive us of our wrongdoings if we ask with a sincere heart and repent from our sins so we don’t do these things again. Repent means to ask forgiveness and then turn from our sins! If you took part in something that hurt someone else and you asked for forgiveness from them, be sure that you also ask God for forgiveness for your part in all of this. If you ask with a sincere heart, you will be forgiven. Then don’t allow yourself to get back into that situation again. Don’t betray a friend by talking about what they shared with you with someone else. I can assure you, God will never do that to you.
My lesson learned the hard way this week: when you need to vent … vent to God, instead.
