Late morning a text pops onto my phone screen. I tap it open and read words from my friend.
Today finds her seeking gratitude to combat grey skies and stinging pain that grips deep in bones.
She encourages my heart and pauses to remember how gratefulness carries an immense impact for the positive in our lives.
She shares a list of five things she’s especially grateful for on this good day and inquires of five on mine.
“I love gratitude lists!” I text in reply and I ponder a bit and then begin to form my five.
It’s never hard to fill a gratitude list, but it can require intentionality on my part.
It’s always seemed to me that happiness and gratitude should easily fall into place. Perhaps so. But I’m learning that maybe choosing the happy attitude, counting gratitude, rejoicing daily, asks more of us, requires a giving up of self and searching deeper in my heart, in comparison to simply giving in to sulkiness, self-centeredness and sharp reaction.
Habits, good ones, growing forward ones, aren’t won heedlessly. They do not bloom without pruning and tending and pouring into.
It’s never not-a-good-day for a gratitude reminder and I smile at my friend’s list as I picture her nestled in her cozy family room.
I finish my list and a simple tap on the arrow sends it across miles and miles in a matter of milliseconds.
5 things for me:
1. Watching my daughter audition for Beauty and the Beast
2. English Toffee Cappuccino in my mug this morning
3. A new mug gifted me that says I Choose Happy
4. Twinkle lights on my Christmas tree
5. A cozy coat to wear against the cold wind today
Your turn! I pass the gratitude baton your way as this week closes and the month of December graces our calendar faces.
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Thank you Deborah, on this gray drizzly Sunday morning. You reminded me of the silver lining around the clouds that seem to be overcoming my efforts to keep positive, happy, and stay focused on the beauty of the season. I knew your post would have a message of love from the fields of the midwest!!!
Thank-you, thank-you for your kind words. They made me smile happy!