Gratitude

57 days ago, I started a project.  I was inspired by a friend of mine on Facebook.  She had actually just finished this project, although I had been intrigued with her posts all year.  For one full year, she wrote, every day, something she was thankful for in her Facebook status.  She made a conscious choice to avoid the negative, the casual complaints or whining we all so naturally do every day.  At least she avoided it in her public status.  This made a big impact on me.

So, coincidentally, on Thanksgiving Day, I decided to take the same step.  I decided, in my public Facebook status, to only write things I am grateful for for one full year.  Some days, it is a challenge.  Some days, it takes everything I have to think of even one thing.  And some days, I have so many, it's hard to choose just one (and sometimes I do post more than one).

Through the course of this "challenge", I am hoping that something will take root in both my head and my heart and I will start living my life and seeing life differently.  I DO have so much to be grateful for.

And it goes along so well with what I've been working on with my counsellor.  We've talked about cognitive behaviour therapy (you can google that, if you don't know what it is), and this is exactly that.  Training my brain to think a different way.  Redirecting my negative thoughts into positive ones.  Right now, it's a conscious effort.  My natural reaction to life (especially the last 17 months of my life) is to focus on the negative, to focus on the harm and tragedy that has struck my family.  And I sit in that place and I dwell.  And it's not helping me.  And, the more I think about it, cognitive behaviour therapy is biblical.  We are told to "set our minds on things above", and to "think" on things that are good and pure and true.  God knows how powerful our minds can be.  He is using my mind to show me how I can heal my heart.  Wow!!  What a revelation.

So, in the course of this year, I will also be sharing my "daily gratitudes" here on my blog.  They may come in chunks as I don't get to my blog daily.  I will start with a few tonight and expand on some of them, too.

Day 1: Comfort food on a cool, cloudy, fall day.
Day 1 (part 2):  Babies in footie jammies.
Day 2:  A third child who, like her brothers, LOVES books and reading.

Day 3:  That we live in a world with the technology to save 33 miners' lives.

Day 4:  The imagination of people who create corn mazes.

Day 5:  A day set aside to remember babies lost in the womb, stillborn, and those lost as infants.  I feel privileged to have carried 6 little souls in my womb, 3 who were there oh so briefly.  Aroha, Brighton, Arorangi, I remember you. 

Day 5 (part 2):  A house that keeps a consistent indoor temperature (in ALL rooms) even when the temp outside is dropping.

Day 5 (part 3!!):  A secret "angel", who has blessed our little family with 3 boxes of "goodies".

Day 6:  A warm, cozy bed on a Saturday afternoon.

And a good one to end with for tonight:

Day 7:  My Saviour, who is my constant source of strength and joy.