Today I will be grateful . . .

 

"Patiently enduring the ingratitude of others while courageously facing and evicting the ingratitude in ourselves is the beginning of better days. Gratitude dispels destructive vices, drives the development of positive virtues and leads to thankful, purposeful and powerful covenant living."
~Boyd Matheson, Why Gratitude Matters 

Yesterday was an exercise in frustration and completely riddled with pain.  For some reason, and apparently overnight my life changed in an instant and for some unkown at the present reason a few weeks ago. It has now become one where I can barely move without wanting to cry out in anguish as the pain wracks my body with torment. I can hardly wait until Thursday when I have my appointment with the physiotherapist. Hopefully she will be able to do something for me, or at least be able to refer me for an x-ray, scan, something!

I am ever cognizant however that it could always be worse. I don't know why I am having to go through this at the moment, but I think there is much to be said about dwelling on the positive rather than the negative and so today I will be grateful  . . .

1. I have a Heavenly Father and a Saviour, who both know what I am going through at the moment and who are on my side. I know they have the power to heal me in an instant.  This has to be for a reason, and I know I will come out the other side better than I was when I went into the tunnel.  It has ever been so.  What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, better, more capable. When I think of what the Saviour did for the world, for all the deserving and the un-deserving, I remind myself of this  . . .  I CAN DO HARD THINGS.

2. I have a husband who loves me and is there to support me no matter what.  He didn't sign up for this. He probably thought he was marrying a woman 17 years younger than himself who would help to support him in HIS old age.  It has not turned out that way at all. And He is still here.  Despite the days when I am more harder to live with than easier.  When I am grouchy or pedantic or yes, even bossy and controlling. He loves me still.

3. I live in a country where I have the availability of free health care. It might not be as good as we would sometimes like it to be, but it is there and it is free and it is much, much better than what most people in this world have available to them.  The waiting times might be long, but I know that at the end of them I will have someone who is competent taking care of me and my health problems.

4. I have been blessed to grow up and live in countries my whole life who have been at Peace in my lifetime.  I have never known the sound of bombs falling, or the threat of real attack. That is a great blessing.

5. I grew up in a home where I was loved, cherished and well cared for.  I never went hungry or had no clothes to wear, no bed to sleep in, was always warm, dry, had all that I truly needed.  It has always been the same and is the same now.  This is a great, great, blessing.

6.  I have always had clean water to drink and indeed a choice in what I do drink or eat or wear.  So many have no choice, or nothing at all.   My life has been and is a life of real abundance.  So much so that most times I have had enough abundance to share with others . . .  probably not as much as I should. This being able to food blog, to share something new to cook or eat or drink each day with thousands of others, this is a true luxury in a world where many go to bed hungry every night of their meagre lives.

7. I have never had to work really REALLY hard for what I have. In comparison to most in the world what I have has come quite easily, and with little effort. Effort is a matter of perspective. What might seem hard to one is not always hard to another. When I worked at the manor the work required a lot of effort at times, and was quite tiring, and sometimes demeaning, but it still wasn't really hard or difficult compared to some. And I was fairly well paid for it in compensation.

8.  I've been a mother and a wife and a daughter and a friend, and am still all those things. I am woman hear me roar.

9. Comparison is the thief of Joy. I know this to be true and so I am grateful for all that I have. Oh yes, there are some with lovely homes and money to buy all that they want or need in life, but there are also a great m any who haven't even a miniscule fraction of what I already have.Who would love to have the comforts of my home, a roof over their head, a bed to sleep in, food for their bodies, heat, etc. There are some with beautiful hair, or bodies, or eyes, or skin, etc. I am grateful to know that these are not things that truly matter. Its whats inside that counts most of all.

 

10.   I have talents that I have only barely scratched the surface of.  I need to explore them more.  I need to write more, to paint more, to just use my talents more and for better purposes than I have.  I am grateful for my talents.

11. I have been loved and am loved. Not once or twice or even three times, but over and over and over and over and over  . . .  always.

12. My body may be wracked with pain at the moment, but I know it won't always be so.  It has not always been so.  I have all my faculties. I can think and write and read and listen. It is not life threatening or soul destroying.

13.  The luxury of time.  Time to do whatever. If I choose to waste it, then that is down to me.

14. The beauty of the morning chorus which embroiders all my days.  I love it when the birds are waking up and beginning to sing.  They may only be sparrows but they sing a song of joy every morning.

15. I love the way the light of the rising sun and beginning day embroiders the roof tops of the houses around me and I love the way that the dusk slowly lowers a blanket at the end of the day to cover us . . .

16. Music. I love music. I am grateful for music and for song, for melodies and for words, that can evoke and inspire and calm  . . . uplift, enrich . . .

 

17.   The freedom I have enjoyed all of my life to think, to have opinions and express them, to have choice, to exist, to vote or not to vote and to do all of those things and more without fear.

18.  For tears. They oftimes express what my voice and mind can't put into words.  They are sometimes healing, and oftimes joyful.   Just grateful for tears.

19. I can hear and I can taste and I can feel and I can see and I can think clearly. So many can not.

20. I am here.  I am still here.  I have minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years . . .  however many or however few.  I can still and will make them count.

 

I choose to feel the rain, and if it means I get a bit wet in the process, so be it.  Its proof I am alive.