It’s never about perfection, but about helping you with the process to purpose!
Is your physical fitness getting on your praise? To the fitness device users have you ever been in praise and worship and had your Apple Watch or Fit Bit ask you if you were working out? When was the last time your arms were sore from lifting them up in thanksgiving?Expressing our gratitude and thanksgiving can be physical work. I would like to suggest two approaches to Gratitude Training that may motivate you to move.
Find the beauty in gratitude. As I was shopping, in the cosmetic area of course, a young woman who was a stranger to me overheard me say that I was an esthetician. She surprised me by saying that she wanted to pay for one of my makeup items because her sister who is deceased was studying to be an esthetician when she passed away. Wow!! This exchange brought about so many emotions and brought tears to my eyes!
Creating stepping stones for his glory. I was only 5 when, having already gone through childhood trauma, I watched my mother, suddenly single, struggling to survive with four young children. Financially illiterate and devastated by her sudden change in circumstance, my mother worked day and night to feed, clothe, and protect us. She even left her nursing career to have more freedom and earning potential raising us by herself, but still, we never knew if our basic needs would be met.
It feels like digging with invisible shovels. How can you miss what you never had? How can you mourn someone you never knew? Well, in that moment I missed her and mourned her. I missed and mourned a relationship that never happened. I missed and mourned her favorite color and sharing mine. I missed and mourned a love for baking and wondering if that was something we shared.
Giving thanks in the daily chaos. Dirty dishes in the sink overnight. Never ending laundry. Kids at each other's throats (again!). Stacked bills that can’t be paid (not all the same month, anyway). The daily aches and pains that are getting worse, not better, with time. Relationships that are hanging by a thread. Any of this sound familiar?
Create an environment of gratitude. God has an abundant Kingdom where lack doesn’t exist. When people and circumstances try to test our gratitude, remember to seek Him first. God has an excellent track record of creating ways for needs and concerns to be supplied that we least expect. Where there is an abundance of gratitude, we no longer strive to survive. We know that our King can take care of every single need.
Learn to show gratitude to your soul. There was a time when a bath for me would happen every 7-14 days and brushing my teeth was something, I explored a few times a week. Self-care was not my thing and it showed. It had nothing to do with not knowing how to care for myself and everything to do with my choices due to depression and anxiety disorder.
This month’s theme of The Everyday Crown Rocker magazine is Gratitude! And in keeping with that theme I want to write about gratitude in marriage. Is it important? And if so -why? Not it seems to go without saying that gratitude is important in relationships. Right? But let’s say it anyway: In relationships, gratitude is important!
But why is gratitude so important for relationships? According to the research, Gratitude is the glue that holds relationships together.
Debt can be a major stressor in the life of any crown rocker. Hence the need for debt avoidance. It has the potential to impact self confidence, cause bumps in marriages, and reduce quality of life due to lack of discretionary income. So before we get into the nitty gritty of how to avoid and manage debt, I want you to take a moment to be grateful for what you have.
Living in this microwave society, I’m going to stop asking God questions (just kidding, but not really). I’m learning that everything in life has a process and there’s absolutely no way around it. We live in a society, that I call “someone else’s microwave society.” It used to be a “microwave society,” where we want things fast and in a hurry. We want to skip steps in the process so that we can get things now.
We need some Type A Gratitude. We no longer have babies or toddlers to carry, which is bittersweet, because now instead of changing diapers and rearranging our schedules around nap time, we are helping with science projects and rushing out of work to make it to ballgames. We are paying the same amount of money to purchase expensive concealers that would otherwise cover the same cost for a family dinner of six.
I didn’t become a foster parent to actually foster children. I was thinking more along the lines of a forever home. My plan was to adopt one perfect little boy or girl, who was desperately needing a forever home. We were going to save them, change their life, & then go on as if nothing had ever happened, you know the story of happily ever after? That would be us.
Sometimes we look in our closet and say, “I have nothing to wear” because we get in a rut always reaching for the same few pieces to wear. One way we can avoid this and wear everything in our closet is to put together outfits instead of just hanging individual pieces.
The devil don’t care. I’d look in the mirror and all I could see was everything I wasn’t and everything I didn’t want to be. I don’t talk about my body image struggles very often because for some reason it’s a taboo subject among women. We bury the insecurities deep under the fluffy notion of self love and self care.
Gratitude is an act. Moving from a place of gratitude is where we turn our focus this month. Let’s define what we mean as gratitude. Gratitude is an act of pausing and remembering what’s going right in the day. It is the unopened flower that we see unfold before our eyes, and seeing the details of every petal, stem, and pistil. Gratitude is a choice.
Do you have a night beast? The Knight and Fair Lady prepared for battle for they knew the beast would soon wake. The beast was neither large nor strong, but it could destroy a couple of adults with its powers. ‘We must rest before it wakes.’ said Knight. They were barely into their first dream when the beast stirred and squeaked.
