Attitude determines anything, everything. An attitude of gratitude is empowering, humbling, enriching, improving. To find something, for which to be grateful, in the midst of common, day to day challenges is to find treasure. To search and find something to be grateful for in the face of seeming nothing is empowering!
Magnetic and Magnifying.
Whatever anyone is grateful for is magnetized and like a magnet it draws to itself the ‘whatever’ for which one is grateful.
Whatever anyone is grateful for is Magnified, made more, made larger and dominant. Just like looking through a Magnifying Glass makes the focused ‘whatever’ larger and dominant, so is ‘whatever’ one is grateful for, Magnified.
From the invisible realm to the visible. From the unreal to the real.
Remember: All ‘Something’ came from nothing.
All.
Excruciating pain was what she experienced. Yet through it all, she was grateful she could experience.
The alternative was/is: non-experience.
Even in pain, to take control with an attitude of gratitude gave her a comfort the pain could not touch. A comfort that grew and overwhelmed the pain.
Considering the planet’s population she knew there were many people who would gladly trade their place and condition with her place and condition.
Certainly she was in pain, but well fed, well sheltered, meals for days into the future, waited in her cabinets.
For her there was a place she could go to get medical help. Too,there was a place she had earned money and insurance to pay for the medical help.
There were medications to help ease the pain, that waited at the end of a phone call.
She could read and write and contemplate. In her world it was common to hear from family and friends of their love, their support, their willingness to help, to drive, to pray, to raise hands of healing, and share their loving energy.
Scriptural phrases strengthened her: ‘This will not end in death.’, ‘I came that you have Life and have it more abundantly.’, and ‘With long life I will satisfy you.’.
Sometimes the questions are for what we are to be grateful.
The probing questions that ask us to reflect deeply and consider the rough places, and the difficult, in our life experience history.
It is there, in the rough terrain of our memories, where we find what we are to truly, thoroughly examine. It is as if we are to contemplatively consider the challenges in our personal history, and then ask, and then make the statement:
Of, acknowledgement, embracing and loving, and then forgiving.
Let go. Let go. Let go.
Be grateful for forgiveness.
Surprises are to be grateful for.
It was so clear last night! We stopped our rush to slow down and settle in for the night. We looked long and intently into the different star groups.
I remembered a night many decades past, just as clearly.
From my perspective, on a hill, part way up a ridge, in the Aux Arc’s, on my grandmother’s front lawn topped with an old quilt, we rested, and a beloved cousin taught me the names of the same star systems.
Sometimes, we would look to the field below, where our parents and Grandparents planted in the fields below, by the moon’s light.
Later, that night, long after we’d parted, while we slept in our own beds, some far from that place, rain came and watered in all the plantings.
This morning too, we woke to see the last of a morning’s easy rain.
Being grateful.
All Traffic Lights are Green. First at the Four-Way Stop signs.
You must expect it to see it.
A way is made.
Pay attention.
All the Traffic Lights are Green.
The Turn Lanes are open and clear and free.
Parking spots open right before me, you.
People endeavor to help.
We walk in favor.
is a bit of a challenge and in so doing makes us much stronger and calmer and prepared for the things we must do.
Storms have been numerous. Floods in some places, fires in others, and in other places, people have senselessly harmed other people.
Overwhelming situations of chaos seem all powerful in their big, strong and fierce ways.
We are bettered when we remember: our resilience as a people, the changing and passing of all things, the rush of thousands of people into the storms to bring help, and hugs, and prayers.
Be encouraged because helping hearted people rush into the storms that have been our history.
The empowering attraction of being thankful will bring in more good and more reasons to be thankful.
Forcing oneself to be grateful takes control, powerful control, away from the negatives, while at the same time giving us confidence in Light overcoming darkness, and help overcoming need.
Be grateful for whatever is most immediate before you. The breath you breathe, a loved one near, pictures saved, the treasured family Bible. No matter how minor, and especially major, make yourself look for the good. Good is.
And please remember: This too will pass.
Some things in life give us opportunity to do over, differently, and maybe better.
Be Grateful for the Do Over Brigade.
On a day like so many others, icy cold at night, then mild and Spring like during the day, a storm gathered over our heads. To the East, the sky was clear and calm, but to the West, grey and threatening.
On the TV weather station, a small dot, very small, indicated rain, but nothing like the deepening blackness that pressed closely over our heads.
Trying to grasp the reason in the sky that was not at all like the image on TV, I returned to the full length glass door. Day had become like night with no moon, the trees groaned and bent to the ground then rose, creaking to the dance of the wind.
Just then, at my husband’s hand, the blinds dropped before my eyes, a roar filled the air, our home’s steady, sure embrace shook, and the lights went out.
With great care and ease, I, we, opened the door to see and feel the torrent of rain and a live electric wire down and hopping with the wind’s work on a tree limb that it had tangled around.
Another tree, at that time an unknown (to us) Species, had wrapped around the Sycamore, like a spiraling downward S, taking branches down to their fall on the electrical wire that came from the Transformer through the air to its rest at the edge of our home’s roof.
Later, with the Insurance Adjuster, we learned the spiraling tree’s species, one that only grew eight tenths of a mile away. We photographed where electrical Arcs had left their burns, and measured length and reach of the wire that bounced death.
Were it not for the Sycamore, of considerable diameter and height, the wind borne tree would have followed its path to, and possibly into the door where I stood. Too, was the very really possibility, that the Live wire would have snaked its way to my harm.
I am grateful for our Sycamore Tree.
On a morning’s stroll just as light had fully cleared the rooftops was how I remember the time.
Still, these several days later I can not say what made me look down to where the rubber of the parked car’s tires met the pavement.
Yet I did look and was startled to see a couple of these screws nestled close to the center nearly bare tire thread. Retrieving the could be hazards and righting myself, I continued my walk.
A couple of steps more and an urgent sense came to my mind: Look at this next tire.
Again my curious eyes met more screws/ bolts, strategically placed in ‘front’ and ‘back’ of the rear tire. The driver would not have been able to miss any of them.
Certainty replaced what had been a sense of coincidence as I strolled around to peek below the other tires. Sure enough, more carefully placed screws and bolts littered the asphalt, hidden almost completely by oil stains and shadow.
All this time later I do not know ‘exactly’ what made me look to see this accident waiting to happen.
I do know the sense of urgency I felt was powerful and compelling, and my first thought considered ‘Guardian Angel’. As in the car owner/ driver’s Guardian Angel.
Sometimes flickering and warm, other times sparkling seeming to leap about.
Other times restful and quiet, but comfortably, strongly there.
Be grateful for siblings. The ones who grew beneath a mother’s heart, and the ones who grew along within a mother’s heart.
Abbey of Gratitude 