Be Thankful

How many of us have struggles in our every day life? I'm sure if I asked that question in a roomful of people, every single person would raise their hand.

Let's face it. Life isn't easy. There are hard knocks on all fronts; family, finances, relationships, jobs, friends, car wrecks, parent loss, and in general, it could be something as simple and silly as the grocery store not having our favorite yogurt in stock.

But something I'm learning is to move on from the hard knocks, to forget about how awful or bad I feel from the things that come and are coming into my life. There is always something to think positive on, be thankful for, and love. We all know how it is to have that one (or two) negative people on our FaceBook or Twitter that just never has anything positive to say. It's always complain, fuss, complain, fuss and don't you just want to delete them, or block their posts? Alright, I know I'm NOT one to be talking here, because I've been known to be Negative Nelly. But I'm changing that. And it's because I've learned that I loose friends, family and respect, plus I loose joy and fulfillment in my life, by just being negative.

It's not been easy at times to find the positive. Some days everything just goes wrong: the kids wake up all soaked in their beds, the trash is overflowing, the toilet overflows, the AC breaks, we don't have quite enough to pay this one bill, a finger nail rips, etc, etc, etc. And often times on those days, I have to sit and think, "What am I going to say that is positive? What will help uplift someone else?" And of course, I'm also thinking, "I wish someone would just post something that would encourage me!" Then I realize, Hey, it's not someone else that is going to make my day brighter, tho their choice of words can brighten my day. It's MY choices and thoughts that are going to bring happiness to my heart and life. I am the one in control of my happiness!

So even tho the whole day is going wrong, I can still find something to be happy about. My kids, the blue sky, (or the rain, if it's raining), the food I am blessed with, a roof over my head, my husband, my parents, the flowers, the grass, my car, my parakeet, that I have AC, running water, a nice church, etc, etc, etc. I know a lot of times, for me, when life gets overwhelming, it's sometimes hard to remember what all I'm really blessed with. But once I starting training myself to look for the good, then I learned to remind myself of all the blessings in my life.

So be thankful. If you don't have something in your life that you want, and it's out of your reach or ability to get, then stop pining away over it. Stop talking about. Stop thinking about it. Look at what you DO have and be thankful for that! There is always, always, always something to be thankful for!!! Always.