Sometimes having a thankful spirit can be difficult. We go through seasons where it's easier to say "Why me?" than it is to see the positive things in our lives. I have been through many in my seven year marriage and honestly those are the worst memories of my marriage!
So how do you change?
You make a choice!
Yes, it really is that simple! You might think, "OK this lady doesn't know anything about living a hard life!" And in many cases that would be true! But I have had many of my own struggles. I didn't have good role models growing up to teach me how to be a good wife. The first 3+ years of our marriage was awful! We fought all the time...through our honeymoon phase! We almost split up several times! But we didn't get married to just divorce and move on. We made a commitment to each other and we were going to stick it out!
You know when it started to change in a big way? When I started letting Hubby be the leader of the household and make the tough decisions and when I started to be happy for the life I have. Right now we are not in the best of situations. I won't go into much detail out of respect for my hubby but we are not living in a place where we want to be, he's not doing the work that he wants to do, we aren't making the money that we want to be making, we are struggling with our relationship because of several the things listed above and each day we have work to keep our marriage strong and the communication open. We have a lot of negative things in our life right now that we could chose to focus on.
Now turn it around...we have 2 wonderful and healthy boys! I have a hubby that loves me so much and he has a wife that just adores him! We have a roof over our head and food for our bellies. We have 2 cars and money to put gas in them. We get to enjoy special time together as a family each night! We get to watch our boys develop a bond only brothers can have. We get to see them learn new things each day. Hubby has a job that is bringing in enough money to keep all of our bills paid. Hubby has goals to make our situation better. We have a marriage that we can openly talk about things and not hide things from one another....the list could keep going! Really we have so many blessings in our lives that God has given to us!
Paul says:
...for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.
Philippians 4:11
Which is what we are doing! We have learned to be content with what we have! No matter where we are in life there will be something that we could focus on to make ourselves miserable and full of complaints but there is always more blessing if we just make a choice to live with contentment and joy!
Debi says:
"Discontentment is not a product of circumstances'
it is the state of the soul."
(pg 36)
And we remember to look at our own situation! If we focus outside of our life we will always want the grass that looks greener on the other side. The problem is the people that own that grass think that our grass looks greener!
Each day we make the choice to be thankful for what we have! Most days we make a conscious choice more than once. We also have our bad days that are full of complaints and we just have to recognized it (which isn't always the easiest thing to do) and then change it!
"Thankfulness is how you think;
joy is the abundance it produces."
(pg 37)
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts,
since as members of one body you were called to peace.
And be thankful.
Colossians 3:15
At the end of each chapter there are things that can help you look deeper into what you read and/or in scripture. This week two questions really stuck out to me that I know I need to work on so I thought I'd share my goals with you and maybe you could partner with me on some things that you might be working on to help your marriage as well.
Do I verbally show thanksgiving every day? (pg 39)
- Tell Hubby everyday something that I'm specifically thankful for that involves him (ex: working hard, helping with the kids, etc.)
- Text him throughout the week with encouraging words to help keep him going through a tough day at work
- I'm not sure my friends would describe me this way so I'm going to look at how I act and things I say not only around my friends (because they should know the real me not a fake one) but all the time. This way I can make sure I'm focusing on the blessings in my life and share with others the joy I have from having a God that is filling my life up with blessings!
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