a new perspective on thankfulness...

"In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God."
Thessalonians 5:18

i have been overdue for a check up. and i am not talking about a medical kind of check up. but a check up on where my heart is. i admit, even though its hard, i have found myself in a not so good place. for some reason, despite the thanksgiving season, i have lost sight of what i am truly thankful for. it is really hard to write this. and to think of my blog post being out there with all of the other warm fuzzy posts filled with really sweet thanksgiving stuff. it makes me shudder. but i am going to be honest and share where my heart has been. i promise that this post is one that may start negative but does turn positive!

i have taken some time to be quiet and reflect this week. and with God's prompting, i gave myself a heart check. i found that so many things that i was struggling with, had taken over who i am. i lost sight of where my focus should be. i let my struggles become who i am. my focus has shifted onto myself. and i allowed it to happen. i allowed myself to think only about myself and how bad things seemed. i had become selfish and saw my struggles as so much bigger than what they really were. i was allowing them to determine my mood and who i was becoming. i was throwing myself one huge pity party. yuck!

just because things don't go my way or don't seem perfect in my sight, i shouldn't allow them to to dictate my mood or my feelings. they are struggles, they are not who i am. God gives us struggles in life so that we can overcome them and learn from them. He doesn't want them to overcome us. and that is what my struggles have been doing to me. they have overcome me. i have allowed them to take a stronghold over me. i have allowed them to take over and they have hidden my true joy and my grateful heart.

a lot of my struggles were with situations that i do not see as perfect or something i deserve. i had developed these self inflicted struggles. i allowed things that were imperfect to become a struggle. just because things didn't go the way i had planned, or the way i wanted, i saw them as a struggle. and instead of wrestling with the struggles, and overcoming them. i let them stay in my heart, making me feel defeated.

so, i began to look at the perspective i was taking with the things in my life...

my marriage.
my kids.
my friendships.
my church.
my finances.
my vehicle.
my home.

and i realized instead of being thankful for them, finding the good in what i do have, i looked at them and saw imperfection. and that is what became my struggle. i struggle with the need for things to be perfect. i was looking for perfection in all areas of my life. and it wasn't there. i began trying to fix all the things that were not perfect. and i realized there is not perfection in any one of those things. not one single thing i listed above is perfect.

what i did lose sight of is the one thing in my life who is perfect.


my God, my Lord, my Savior.

i lost perspective of Him. of who He is. i lost sight of all of things that i should be rejoicing in because of Him.

i lost perspective that He is in control of the good things and the not so good things in my life. i am not in control. He knows the plan He has for me and it will not harm me. somehow, i had forgotten that and took it upon myself to be in control.

so this thanksgiving season, with a newly repaired heart, i choose to be grateful to Him for everything in my life. God has given me so much and i am truly blessed.

"Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever."

Psalm 107:1