November Challenge: Day 6

I'm sorry that today's post is another late night post. This evening was hectic and I mean hectic! I spent the evening helping my mom clean out her kitchen so that we could move her new kitchen table into the house, it had previously been in her garage. This meant cleaning, organizing, and disassembling furniture so that it would fit through doorways...in short it was a lot of work. While doing this I was thinking about how wonderful it is when everything is organized and has a place to be stored. In thinking about organization I realized that organization is an attribute that is often taken for granted, but is definitely something that should be appreciated because organization makes your life easier and therefore more enjoyable. 

When you are organizing, regardless of the room or the contents of your things, you realize just how much stuff that you actually have. Most of the items in our homes are things that we thought we needed at one time or another, but never were used or weren't really needed. These items take up space and create clutter, which adds to our daily stress. The worst part is that this stress is preventable. As I said organizing is great about reminding you of just how much stuff that you actually have and this is a great time to give thanks for the plethora of items that you own, while also purging those unnecessary items and donating them to someone else. Donations are a great way to show gratitude for your posessions because you are acknowledging just how blessed you are while sharing your blessings with others. Once you are organized you are much less likely to purchase friviously because you are more aware of your possessions. 

If you have too much stuff don't worry because you are definitely not alone. I am in this category too, but going forward I am going to be more mindful of my possessions and have a greater appreciation for organization. I am thankful for organization, for unique storage ideas, and for donation boxes that prevent items from being wasted. As Jesus said to the rich man, who had many possessions, "Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God," (Matthew 19:24, NIV). Possessions aren't necessarily bad, but they certainly shouldn't run our lives or contibrute to our stress. As we enter into a season of thanksgiving and giving I think this is an important reminder for all of us. 

What are you thankful for today?

November Challenge: Day 5

November represents the start of the holiday season (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years) and for some people the holiday season represents a time of sadness and hardship. The sadness and hardship felt can be the result of symbolic or actual loss, but prevents individuals from fully enjoying their holiday season with friends and family. I have experienced a few such holiday seasons myself and have known many other people who have also shared in similar feelings during the holiday season. During this period you are experiencing sadness at a time when you are also feeling social pressure to be happy and thankful for your blessings. Your friends and family may even suggest that you be happy and grateful because they just don't know what to say anymore. You may even experience an intense feeling of guilt because you can't just be happy or filled with gratitude like everyone else. I just want to state that it is perfectly ok to feel grief at a loss and to mourn that loss during a time that everyone is rejoicing. To be filled with grief or even to mourn is not sinful and therefore you have no reason to be filled with guilt. 

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." - Matthew 5:4

This morning as I read my Devotional Daily email I was reminded of this truth. Today's excerpt was from Bo Stern's book When Holidays Hurt and was a powerful testimony about the dance of grief and gratitude. There are three key words from this verse: bless, mourn, and comfort. We can be happy to mourn because God Himself shall comfort us. God comes near to us in our grief and comforts us. It is only through mourning that we can experience this level of God's presence in our lives. God reminds us that it is ok to be broken with Him. In our grief we will be comforted. Bo Stern challenges her readers to find hidden hope by making two columns on a sheet of paper, labeling one grief and one gratitude. List everything you feel in one of the columns, making sure you are being honest with how you're really feeling, and then write blessed, mourn, and comfort over the list, asking Jesus to show you the ways He is working in every area of your life. In strength, in weakness, in brightness, and in darkness we thank God. 

Today I am thankful for knowledge. It is through knowledge that we have understanding. It is understanding that allows us to be sympathetic and comforting to those around us who are experiencing a hard holiday season. We can grieve with those who are grieving and rejoice with those who are rejoicing. This holiday season, whether we are grieving or rejoicing, we can be grateful because we are blessed in God's love for His children. 

What are you thankful for today?

November Challenge: Day 4

Happy Wednesday! I am thankful it is half-way through my work week. I am also happy that the weather has dramatically cooled down since last week. It is amazing the difference a few days can make on something. This is a helpful truth to remember when we are looking on our circumstances. A day can change anything from the weather to your own unique circumstances. In a day you can lose everything or gain the whole world. This is a scary thought to me, but it is also a comforting thought because our circumstances are not the end and this is a reality that we should all be thankful for. This year has been a year of difficult circumstances, tremendous change, and general upheaval in my life. If you have read my blog from the beginning than you are familiar with my hardships and if not, well than you are likely familiar with your own hardships. Today I spent time reflecting on my present circumstances and just how much has happened in this year, including every moment of sadness and every moment of joy. 

Our matching stamps from an aquarium trip

It is in this remembrance of the moments that brought me joy that I find today's blessing. Today I am thankful for the one I love, the one who can always make me laugh, and who makes my heart skip a beat every time I am with him. There have been plenty of moments that have brought me heartache, especially this year, but he can always bring a smile to my face and I am grateful for him. I love that I can be in a serious mood and he can look at me, say something random, and I can enter into that moment with him laughing. Yes, there are times when that random word or phrase is distracting and counterproductive to our conversation, but I am grateful that he knows the importance of not taking himself seriously. 

 With all of our ups and downs, I am grateful for the one who makes me laugh. What are you thankful for today?

November Challenge: Day 3

I apologize that this post is so late this evening. I planned on coming home from work and writing today's gratitude, but I ended up taking care of a sick puppy. Then I had to help my mom move some furniture, which turned into a much larger project than originally anticipated. Isn't that how it always seems to happen? Anyways, on to today's intentional gratitude.

Today I am thankful for something that often times I take for granted, which is Election Day. Honestly, sometimes I even think of voting as a burden, one more task I have to get done in my day, but the ability to voice your opinions and have them actually matter is a tremendous blessing. The ability to cast your vote or live in a democratic state is not a privilege that everyone is able to enjoy. There are plenty of people who are actively fighting each day for the right to an election. I think that it is important that each of us exercise this right. We might not always like our choices and we are certainly not going to get our way everytime, but at least our voices count and have the potential to shape the world around us. That is truly a wonderful thought. Our voice, our opinion, and our beliefs matter to our elected officials. We have the ability to create dramatic change by simply exercising our right to cast a vote in an election. 

Personally, I am not in favor of politics because it always seems to drive a wedge between people. I don't believe a political party should be the determining factor for why a person is elected, but not everyone agrees with me. I am much more interested in the basis of a person's argument than their politcal party, education, experience, or promises, but other people find they need to know these details of a person's life before they can listen to their argument. The point is not to start a political debate about the most effective way to vote or choose an elected official, but to point out that we all do things differently. We all have our own opinions, our own way of thinking, and our own beliefs about how things should run, but that doesn't mean anyone should be put down for their differences. The beautiful thing about democracy is that each of us is allowed to be different and to shape our world through our differences. Every voice maters. Voting allows us to maintain our democracy and that makes Election Day a tremendous blessing in my life today. 

November Challenge: Day 2

This morning I woke up to rain and it was wonderful. Rain is without a doubt today's blessing. If you live in California than you understand exactly why rain is such a blessing. California has been in an awful drought for a few years now and our land is parched. Yes, we occasionally get rain, but we are not receiving nearly as much as we need. The entire state has had to ration water usage and our beautiful landscape has turned brown. This year even the smallest amount of rain has called me to sing God's praises, but today He blessed our land with lots of rain. All day it rained and quenched a thirsty land. 

California's drought reminds me of the spiritual drought many Christians face. We, as humans, have a tendency to believe that occasional participation or exposure to something makes us healthy. An occasional cleaning at the dentist guarantees our teeth are healthy or an occasional visit to the doctor means we won't become ill. This doesn't make it true, yet we convince ourselves that it is because this  "truth" makes us feel better. Christians sometimes have this same attitude toward spirituality. There is this belief that if you attend church weekly that you are spiritually healthy. Yet the truth is the occasional attending of a sermon, reading of scripture, or prayer does not make you spiritually healthy. Just like California needs a steady deliverance of rain, Christians need a continual exposure to those things which enrich their spiritual lives. We need the rain, we need the nourishment, to make and keep us healthy.

Today I have so much to be thankful for. I am thankful for the rain. I am thankful for the power of prayer. I am thankful for God's word. I am thankful for the church. I am thankful for devotionals. The thirst of the land and my soul are being quenched and I am grateful. What are you thankful for today?

November Challenge: Day 1

Today is the first day of November, which means it is day one of the intentional gratitude challenge. Each and every day we are given dozens of reasons to be grateful, giving hearty thanks to God, but most of us forget we are blessed and overlook the very ways God is blessing us. When we overlook or forget God's blessings, it becomes very easy to be weighed down by life's circumstances and even become bitter. A bitter heart doesn't produce fruit. Much like the withered fig tree, as long as our heart's our bitter the heart will not produce fruit. Our heart is not a withered fig tree and this is where we are blessed. Jesus cursed the fig tree because it didn't produce any figs and the tree withered up, removing all possibility of producing fruit, but He didn't curse our hearts, which allows us the opportunity to remove bitterness, through pruning, and go on producing fruit. We can prune bitterness from our hearts when we are intentional about our gratitude and remember our blessings. A few days ago I presented this challenge and I really hope you join me in pruning our hearts for a fruitful harvest. 

Today's blessing came to me in the form of an email. Going into this challenge I had some ideas of what I wanted to write about, areas I knew I should be grateful for, but this morning as I read my email I knew that this (email) was what I needed to be grateful for. A few months ago, through FaithGateway, I joined a 40 Days to Glory memory verse challenge and after completing the challenge I started receiving a Devotionals Daily email as a thank you for participating. The Devotionals Daily emails are today's blessings. Every day I receive them I am given a blessing, an excerpt from a Godly person's book, and insight into my own life. Each devotional has a way of speaking to my present circumstances and encourages me to think about the impact that topic has on my life. One day was about evil and spoke about how our battle wasn't really with others, but with evil (Satan). This was encouraging because we know God already won that battle through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

While today's was about the danger of looking for a savior in anyone other than Jesus and in trying to be a savior to someone else. Today's devotional was surprising. Most people, when asked, would deny seeking a savior in someone other than Jesus or in trying to be a savior themselves, but often times this is exactly what we end up doing. We create a dependence on other people or other people create a dependence on us for their source of happiness and hope in the future. The result is a crushing weight and often the cutting of ropes. Relationships are ended and hearts are devastated. All of this because we had unrealistic expectations in ourselves or others. This harsh truth comes at a time when I need to analyze my own role and actions in relationships and I am grateful for the wisdom of this devotional. I am thankful there is one who still exists to save me and I am blessed by our relationship. With every breath I take I can be grateful that Jesus Christ is my savior. 

Today, what are you choosing to be thankful for?

November Challenge Introduction

I must apologize that I haven't posted anything in a few months. As I shared with you in August, I had West Nile and was very sick for a few weeks. I was still writing posts during this time and I intended to post these lessons, but ended up feeling I needed to take some time to reflect on my purpose for posting these lessons. So while I do have some lessons from this time, I will not be posting these lessons and will be ending the year on a different note. In my time away from Lessons, I have thought about two challenges that I think would be beneficial for me to complete in the next two months. I will be introducing each challenge a few days before I actually start it so that you will have an opportunity to join me in the challenge if you want. The first challenge starts November 1st.

November is only a few days away and presents us with a reminder that we are blessed and should be thankful for our blessings. Thanksgiving is typically the time when we remember to give thanks, but there are so many blessings that I think it would be good to make November a month of intentional gratitude. There are a few different ideas about how you can complete this challenge, but I decided to keep the requirements flexible so more people would be able to complete this challenge without feeling confined to someone else's ideas. For this challenge you will write about something you are grateful for (a suggested list of items is compiled below) and then you have the option of sharing your thankfulness through a picture of the item or a post on a social media site. The main goal is that each day you would be intentionally grateful for some aspect of your life. Sharing the things you are grateful for is recommended because it encourages the people around you to be grateful too.

The following is a list of items that you can choose to be intentionally grateful for. This list is a compilation of a few lists I found on Pinterest.
1. Your home
2. Nature
3. Something you see everyday
4. Something you do everyday
5. Transportation
6. Hobbies
7. Work
8. Family and Friends
9. Technology
10. Quiet
11. Noise
12. Texture
13. Smells
14. Color
15. Music
16. Something that makes you laugh
17. Something that makes you smile
18. Something that fills you with hope
19. Something that fills you with love
20. Something you accomplished today
21. Passion
22. Purpose
23. Peace
24. Intention
25. Movement
26. Stillness
27. Kindness
28. Letting go
29. Self-care
30. Myself
31. A person
32. A role you've played
33. A place
34. An experience
35. A talent you have
36. Failure
37. Words
38. A photo
39. A memory
40. Something you were taught
41. An opportunity
42. An ability
43. A blessing
44. An annoyance
45. Something you own
46. A room
47. A choice
48. A book
49. Something about someone you love
50. Something that you take for granted
51. An expectation
52. Something you've seen
53. A physical trait
54. Knowledge
55. Criticism you have receieved
56. A simple pleasure

This list contains items that you wouldn't necessarily think about being grateful for, but I encourage you to explore each item on the list as part of a deeper experience of self. An annoyance, such as a red light, might have prevented you from a terrible accident at the next intersection and is therefore something to be grateful. Something that many of us take for granted is nourishment through food and drink, but is something we should be grateful for everyday. I hope that you decide to participate in this challenge with me and I look forward to reading what you are grateful for in your own life.