God is so good! Today He has given me a practical application to my last post. Needing to work on my discontentment, which is really just the sin of ungratefulness, He has shown me how to work on this. I love practical applications. God doesn't show us sin without helping us deal with it.
So as I am reading my chapter 'The Power of a Good Attitude' this week in >The Power of a Positive Mom, Karol Ladd suggests that we keep a gratitude journal. So my twist on this is when I find myself with a bad attitude about a person or situation I am going to write down my grief, and then write whatever positive things I can.
For example:
Negative:
The neighborhood kids are always at my house, sometimes twenty at a time.
Positive:
*They like our family
*We have the opportunity to show them Jesus.
*They feel comfortable here.
*We get to really know our neighbors.
*We have seen some accept the Lord through our kids.
*Since there are so many families that rent in our 'hood, our time with these families is limited. Time is of the essence.
*Our kids have lots of friends to play with.
You get the picture. I am excited, encouraged, and challenged to do this until my attitude has a significant change. I am hoping to see an overflow in my children too. Please hold me accountable girls, oops did I really say that? ;o)
6 comments:
I am looking forward to reading this chapter, but at the moment I have misplaced my book. Maybe the next book we should read is The Power of the Organized Mom? :)
What a great idea! We should all do that! My Pastor at my old church one time showed us this scientific proof from tests that were done on people and when they thought about things that upset them or made them sad certain things happened in their body that over time would lead to all sorts of physical and medical problems if they continued in that state of mind. Then they ran the same test on the people as they thought of positive things and were listing out things that they were thankful for and the tests showed all these positive physical things that happened in their body. He said the tests also proved it is humanly impossible to produce the chemicals in your brain that cause depression, when you are thinking about things you are thankful for. He basically pointed out that God was pretty smart when He told us to give thanks in everything and now scientist are spending a gagillion dollars to find out something they could have known just by reading the Bible. =) . Isn’t God GREAT!
I have yet to read that part, but the outlook is great. Today, as the girls were playing with a neighborhood friend, who can be challenging, I thought things would be easier if I just kept my kids locked up in our house. But then, we wouldn't get the opportunity to influence them for good. Are you sure you want us to hold you accountable??? ;)
So Carol, are you saying if I do this I will be skinnier?
Yes, Tricia I do want y'all to hold me accountable...there I said it twice. Oh no. ;o)
do you ever read a blog post and then go to comment and forget what the post was about????
that's why it's so important to have descriptive titles, girls, for us OLD folks who are wither ing before your very eyes.
anyhoo, uuhhmm...what's made the difference???(JK)
you are right.
your journey is not mine and visa versa, and isn't that a blessing cuz then we can share what we've learned along the way with our friends who can rejoice with us or who can reproove us, whichever is necessary.
I am so glad that we have a circle of friends who meet those standards and hold us to those standards.
;0)
Ok,
I'm really gonna work on being positive and thinking positive "thankful" thoughts. :)
Lori, you are so funny!
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