Be Grateful

Today, I walked into my bedroom - pillows thrown everywhere, toys laying all around, part of a pop tart stuck in my carpet, my husband's work stuff NOT organized where it should be - and, before I began to start a mommy-dearest rampage on everyone, I took a deep breath and God stopped me. I hear this small voice in my head say “be grateful.” In the moment I didn’t want to hear "be grateful," I wanted to hear "you are totally justified in yelling at everyone in your house for messing up the one place that is yours!!" The one place I can go to retreat from everything else that is going on in the world! But God was teaching me something bigger than I realized in that moment.

He was teaching me to stop looking down and look up.

I am not the most grateful person in the world and I can easily go to the negative side of things, but lately those words have been on my mind and in my heart. I read a quote one day that said, “Count your blessings, not your problems.” A little cliche but, OH SO TRUE. When we choose to focus on our circumstances and the things around us we can easily slip into pointing out all the things going wrong and we can begin to throw a pitty-party for ourselves. We blame others, get frustrated, take that frustration out on the people we love most and reek havoc on our lives by letting Satan get a foothold on something so small.

But when we keep our eyes on Jesus and what he has done for us, we have no choice but to fall down in worship and be grateful.

When we keep our eyes on Jesus and what he has done for us, we have no choice but to fall down in worship and be grateful. If Jesus never did another thing for us, if everything we love was taken from us tomorrow, we still have Jesus and He is enough.

It isn’t easy but everyday we have to choose to put our eyes on the Creator - to find our joy, our peace and our identity solely in HIM. 

So today I choose to be grateful.

I will be grateful I have a husband who wants to play and wrestle and have pillow fights with the kids. I will be grateful I have children who want to be near me so they bring in their books and toys to play where I am working. I will be grateful God has provided food for my kids to eat (even if all the food is supposed to stay in the kitchen). I will be grateful my husband has a job and is super busy with ministry that sometimes he has to run out of the house before he can clean up his stuff. I WILL BE GRATEFUL! 

And, ultimately, I will be grateful for a Heavenly Father who reminds me of these beautiful blessings I take for granted everyday. Today, I encourage you to pray and ask God to show you all of those little blessings you take for granted or the ones you don’t even notice. Have a beautiful day and remember to be grateful. #begrateful #thankfulheart #thankful #heisenough #christ #jesuschrist #god #christian #christianity #guestblog #jessicagresham #newblogpost #gratefulheart #motherhood #stayathomemom #momlife #choosetobegrateful #youhaveachoice #workofchrist #crossofjesus #salvation #bible #getintheword #fixyoureyes #identity #inchristalone #lookup #lookupchild #laurendaigle #worship #praise #countyourblessings