{"id":12094,"date":"2020-03-22T05:38:18","date_gmt":"2020-03-22T10:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=12094"},"modified":"2020-03-22T05:38:29","modified_gmt":"2020-03-22T10:38:29","slug":"in-everything-give-thanks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=12094","title":{"rendered":"In EVERYTHING — Give Thanks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I stopped by a friend\u2019s home a few days ago. Understandably, she is distraught because her high-school-senior-son is missing out on his final year of baseball, as well as missing out on his Senior Prom. And she went on to feel sorry for those college students who are delayed in their graduations and other friends who are having to cancel or postpone their weddings. I get it. It\u2019s a difficult and disappointing time for so many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I responded to her by telling her about my morning \u201caha\u201d. I know this is TMI (too much information), but it\u2019s my truth. I say: \u201cI am sitting on my toilet this morning. I am pooping. I say to God: \u2018Thank you so much for my system working so good. Thank you for this toilet. Thank you for the water in this toilet. Thank you for this bathroom that has a door on it and it\u2019s indoors. Thank you for water to drink. Thank you for my home. Thank you for my lights. Thank you for technology. Thank you for YOU, God \u2013 Who promises to never leave me or forsake me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She got the picture. And, so do you. It\u2019s expressing gratitude for what we do have. It\u2019s seeing the bigger picture that this all will pass and we\u2019ll be telling our grandchildren about the 2020 pandemic. We will talk about the faithfulness of God Who brought us through while telling them about those who got very sick and many who lost their lives. This time will go down in the history books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, we are inconvenienced. Yes, we are missing spending times with friends and family. Yes, we miss going to church and concerts and sports games and restaurants and previously planned events. Yes, we want to go back to \u201cbusiness as usual\u201d. Yes, we want our \u201cnormal\u201d to be normal again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But, instead of what we don\u2019t have or what we don\u2019t get to do \u2013 let\u2019s consider what we do have. So, what to do when we don\u2019t know what to do? We count our blessings \u2013 even name them one by one. I mean it. Since you\u2019re at home with your kiddos \u2013 why not play the \u201cI am so blessed\u201d game. \u201cYou have one minute to tell us what you\u2019re thankful for!\u201d I did the exercise. I gave myself one minute, using my phone app. Ready! Set! Go!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I heard my dishwasher running. I wrote down “dishwasher”. My eyes went to my piano that Papa played, I play, and our grandson plays. I wrote down “piano”. I was seeing — I wrote down “my eyes”, and hearing — “my ears”; I was sitting in a comfy chair — “my furniture”; I saw my computer — I wrote down “computer and internet”. I glanced over at my refrigerator — I wrote down “refrigerator”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we express gratitude, rather than being bugged and annoyed by this time when we can\u2019t do anything about it in the natural, we can express to God how thankful we are for what we do have. A grateful heart sees each day as a gift. Thankful people focus less on what they lack and more on the privileges and blessings they have. The grateful heart is like a magnet that collects reasons for gratitude — for the paper clip to hold those pages together; for the milk in our cereal; for the song that soothes us; for the clock we hear ticking; for the light that turns on; for the car that takes us to the OPEN grocery store. Thank you, Lord!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

May this time of uncertainty and inconvenience, become a time of really being thankful people for what we do have. May we choose gratitude as a habit that we choose daily as a way of life \u2013 even after this crisis is over. May we be overwhelmed with the beauty and abundance of all God has given us!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I stopped by a friend\u2019s home a few days ago. Understandably, she is distraught because her high-school-senior-son is missing out on his final year of baseball, as well as missing out on his Senior Prom. And she went on to feel sorry for those college students who are delayed in their graduations and other friends…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15689,16888,16323],"tags":[16887,1519,1223,1210,1769,7669,12003,3804,16886,1966,839,851,38,40,863,2681],"class_list":["post-12094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-attitude-of-gratitude","category-blessing-game","category-thankful","tag-2020-pandeic","tag-attitude","tag-attitude-of-gratitude","tag-blog","tag-christian","tag-count-your-blessings","tag-difficult","tag-disappointment","tag-encouragment","tag-game","tag-give-thanks","tag-grateful-heart","tag-gratitude","tag-inspiration","tag-thankful","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12094"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12099,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12094\/revisions\/12099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}