Thankful Grateful Blessed

 Often a small change can lead to big results, and one thing that many people could change is to say grateful or thankful instead of blessed. Switching out blessed for grateful is more than semantics, it is a mind shift in the way you think.

Many people say they are blessed to live somewhere, to have the family they do, to have the job they do. Whatever is good in their life, they are blessed to have it. It implies that people who do not have those good things are not blessed. Why are certain people 'blessed' and not others? We can't tell the difference because they seem to act the same or worse than the people who are not 'blessed'. Why is God favoring certain people who are not doing extraordinary things to get those blessings. Saying you are blessed can sound like bragging to others.

Saying instead that you are grateful for the good things in your life shows a humble attitude. You realize life is not all good for you or others and are grateful for the good things you do have in your life. We all have good and bad things happen throughout life. When you focus on the negative things, they loom large over the good. When you can appreciate the good in your life, whether it is one thing or many, your focus can be positive and you can work to build your resilience through the bad. 

When you are going through a hard time and get the advice to 'count your blessings', focus on being humble and grateful for what is good in your life to help tide you through a rough time. 

Our Loved Ones Are Not Lost To Us Forever

(I came upon this quote on the internet with no source listed.) 

"Death does not unmake a [parent]. If anything, we need to be more resourceful in our [parenting]. There are no parenting books, no theories on how to parent a dead child. But we still parent. We just make it all up, each day, as we go along, hurting and healing. Parenting is just tailoring maternal [or paternal] love to fit each child. We do that with our dead babies too. We wonder which flower would honor their lives, we relish speaking their names. We collect drawings of butterflies, quotes that touch our hearts, we write their names on the sand and in the snow.

We remember. We remember all the time. We remember the love. Also, the pain. That odd quality we have about us... it's because we have something special. We have extra love in our hearts. Love that can't translate into choosing the safest rear-facing car seat, so it becomes love that wonders and meanders, most times with nowhere to go. So this love with no port, it flutters about. Sometimes it bursts out through tears, stinging sobs. Other times it makes for a sideways smile when we remember our child. And it always makes us seem just a teeny bit off. Because we are. A little person is missing from our arms. But all the love for them is here, inside us, bubbling away in everything we do." 

 

With Mother's Day and Memorial Day recently passed, and Father's Day coming up, many people are hurting instead of celebrating. Parents who have lost children physically or emotionally, and children who have lost parents as well. 

 

It is easy to feel so alone in the pain of a loved one lost. The pain is easily dismissed because it is not visible. Broken bones are commiserated and there is a known healing time period. Broken hearts are invisible and there is not a specified healing time period. The grief will stay with you forever, you learn to grow around it and with it. "People tend to believe that grief shrinks over time / What really happens is that we grow around our grief"

  

I believe that those we love are not lost forever. They have moved on to a new part on the journey of their life. Their souls are still alive in a spiritual realm while we remain in a physical realm. When we die or pass on, truly pass on to the next stage of our lives, we will have the chance to reunite with them forever. 

 

I don't understand why some people die 'before their time', before the natural time we believe they should have died. I don't agree with it, and I have told God that we will have to agree to disagree about this until I can stand face to face and learn from God about the whys behind the tragedies. 

 

I do believe that God has a divine plan of happiness that we cannot comprehend with mortal minds. I do believe God does not cause all the trials in our lives, and I do believe that God does not always prevent the bad things from happening. This is supposed to be for our good. I can see the growth and the good things that arise like a phoenix from the ashes, but the burning fire hurts so badly. I do have faith that all will be made right, somehow, when we leave the mortal world for a spiritual realm where we will leave our physical limitations behind.

 

There is much to live for even in the midst of the worst hardships, and we can have faith that we will survive, and we can choose to become stronger. The trials don't make us strong, our resilience and good choices make us strong.

 

Happily Ever After In Heaven

At book club recently, we read a book which almost didn't have a happy ending. The happy ending came in the epilogue. Life can feel like that a lot, a person's life story ends without the happy ending they were wanting, but there is an epilogue- heaven- where the happily ever after comes. 

To not believe in God, to not believe God can and will consecrate all the bad that happens in our lives to good, leaves a person without hope. What is the point of life, what is the point of birth and death, what is the point of being a good person if it doesn't really matter in the end? If there is nothing after death, then life has no meaning. 

Many times when reading a book or watching a movie, bad things keep happening to the main characters, or they make bad choices. Most often, these bad things either make them stronger or lead to something better than would have happened otherwise. We endure the bad knowing there will be a happily ever after at the end of the story, a satisfactory solution to the problems. We want that in every story because we need to believe it will also happen in our lives.

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. 1 Corinthians 2:9

Have faith in God, have faith you will be reunited with God and your family in paradise. You can and will make choices to get through the depravity of life to be rewarded with a crown of glory.

Why Do We Need To Worship and Praise?

God is all powerful, all mighty, omniscient, omnipresent, God is everything. So why do we need to worship and praise God? What does it do for God? What does it do for us? 

God's Hands

Worship and praise are forms of gratitude. When we praise God, we acknowledge all that has been done for us and are thankful for God's presence in our lives. God does not need us to worship and praise but wants us to worship and praise for our own benefit.

The words from the song below help explain praise:

   It don't always fix your problems, but it'll tell ya how small they are
   That's the thing about praise
   ...
   It won't always move the mountain, but it's good for the heart
   That's the thing about praise
   ...

   You'll never know what it's gonna change, but it'll always leave a mark
   That's the thing about praise
   ...
   Yeah, I might see walls start falling, or it might just change my heart
   That's the thing about praise...

   The only way through it is a hallelujah

   (That's The Thing About Praise by Benjamin William Hastings and Blessing Offor)

When we praise and worship God, it benefits us and honors God for the many things God does in our behalf. We worship and praise to thank God!