Gratitude and Holidays (Anne)

I think we mention the importance of gratitude on a fairly regular basis here on the ol' blog, but it's worth another mention today.

The talks in my ward today were all about gratitude and how important it is to be grateful. Every November over on my non-pen-named blog, I write a daily post of what I'm grateful for each day. Some days the posts are poignant realizations, some days the gratitude is perfunctory. But I do try to be grateful.

The holiday trifecta is fast approaching--the trifecta that reminds me over and over that I am alone. Christmas, New Years, and Valentine's Day. It is so easy for me to get bogged down in what I don't have (a spouse, heck--I'd settle for a mere date) that I fail to recognize what I do have: a truly wonderful life.

I'm really hoping that all of us who turn to this blog for some kind of comfort, validation, or support will remember that in the coming months, we are all blessed. Sometimes we are blessed with our jobs. Sometimes we are blessed with our families. Sometimes we are blessed as we serve others. We all can be grateful for at least one thing a day.

Focus on those blessings throughout this holiday season, and recognize God's hand in your life. I know the holidays can be hard--and I'm not saying I won't have some dark days myself--but keeping an eye toward what God HAS given me, instead of focusing on the one teensy-weensy thing He hasn't might help me be a little less despondent. I hope it helps you too.

Gratitude Can Change Your Attitude (Marnie)

I would rather puke than listen to one more married person with a husband and 3.5 children tell me I should be grateful that I’m still single. I personally think that these comments should be outlawed. These insensitive individuals should have to pay some huge fine for their hurtful comment or at least spend a few days in jail. Because I didn’t marry their stupid husband or raise their rotten kids! Why should I be grateful to be single because they choose unwisely and created their own mess??

Unfortunately, they are completely right. But not for the reason they say.

I’ve found as I’ve made goals to improve my social life, work on my relationship skills, and even to get married (I’m on my third official goal now!! 2010 is MY YEAR!!), keeping the faith and trusting God has been REALLY tough. Just when I’m doing well, something happens and I seem to lose my footing and just start to fall apart. Sometimes I can stop it, but sometimes I just crash and burn…

We’ve been told to be grateful. I think it’s even a commandment. Well, from experience I know it helps me deal with my singleness – as crazy as that sounds. And remembering to be grateful helps me get out of that low place I find myself in.

Because on paper – discounting my hopes and dreams for a future family being unfulfilled – my life is not all that bad. I have a good stable job that I enjoy most of the time. I have a home and car that runs most of the time – neither are perfect - but they are a lot better than I thought I would have. I was blessed with a great family and parents that don’t give me any guilt trips about not living up to the goal of producing grandchildren for them – the one thing parents desire most when they hit 65 years old. I have great friends that keep track of me as though I am family – while I live far from my family. They have been the consistency a single person needs. Even as most of them have moved on and married, they still keep me a part of their life. And for some strange reason, they still want to hear my horrible, horror stories from my dating experiences. Go figure.

I think remembering all these things helps keep me positive about my future. Why? Because when you look at your life – really look at it – God blesses you so much. But you HAVE to recognize it. If you don’t see it, you can’t feel that love from God, which is so essential in dealing with the stresses of earthly existence. When I do take the time to realize how much I have and how much God has been a part of my life and blessed me, I am truly humbled and realize that focusing on what I don't have is not the point of it all and that it only makes me miserable.

Well, what if you don’t have a great job, or you are in debt up to your ears, live your life the very best you can every single day, and you are STILL unmarried? That seems even MORE unfair. But I can PROMISE you that if you examine your life, you’ll see how God watches out for you every day – how he helps you. Sometimes a whole lot in one day. It’s funny how quick we are to say a good thing is from luck or even from our own doing. We are very self-centered that way. (At least I know I am.) But if we take the time every day to recognize how God is in our life, we will appreciate everything so much more and will find that the void we feel – the lack of a husband and our children – won’t hurt as much. We’ll feel more love from God and will realize that he cares about every aspect of our being. And that he understands our pain and loneliness. And that he has a very special plan for us. Sure, we may not like our plan – or at least this part of the plan – but it is our own and it’s perfect for our progression.

Enjoying the journey is the hardest thing in the world for me - especially when the journey isn't what I planned. But appreciating what you have and recognizing the hand of God in your life while you go through the hard journey makes it a lot easier.

Pres. Henry B. Eyring tells of how he began a long time ago to write in his journey every single day about how God had a hand in his life and blessed him and his family. It changed everything for him. Well, I’m terrible at journals – but I’m going to do a 30 day experiment. I’m going to do what President Eyring did. I’m going to record every night how God helped me that day. Even if it’s that he gave me several green lights that got me to work on time when I was running late. My hope is that it will help keep me more grounded and help me give credit where credit is due. And most especially, help me find that happiness that only comes from feeling true gratitude for my life.

Perspective (Leah)

I’ve really wanted to post something on here, but sometimes life gets so busy being lived it’s hard to find time to do much reflection. Or, as may be the case right now, sometimes the living and reflecting of life just gets so serious that it’s hard to find reflections fitting to share with the masses. This weekend, though, I had a lot of good bonding time with solid girl friends that helped bring some clarity to my thinking. Perspective seemed to be a running theme. Then this morning I was reading an email my brother sent to the family and I noticed a part of it could relate to my ideas of perspective. First let me share what he wrote. I’ll preface this to say he is a first year teacher. He has said that this is the hardest job he’s ever had. The teachers out there may enjoy his thoughts in relation to the profession; I did.

“I used my day off to outline some more chemistry. By the end of this year I will have essentially my own mini high school chemistry textbook. I’ve gotten less creative as the pressure of time has blown the petals off my week. Creativity is a time intensive product, which demands concentration and a lot of patience. ‘Patience is a virtue, catch it if you can. Seldom in a woman, never in a man.’ I’ve also started making mini-lectures online to accompany my mini-textbook. The problem is I don’t have all the necessary equipment to do the job that I want to do, so I have to settle for mediocrity and pray to Salieri for forgiveness (a reference for those who’ve seen Amadeus). I post my lectures on you-tube and use it as another tool to convince my students that it is their own fault that they are failing my class. I never realized how guilt-inducing a student’s failure is on a teacher. I’m trying everything I can to shake my clothes in front of them and not be lazy in my responsibility to teach. Nevertheless, the guilt still haunts me and I try to think of ways to reach them and motivate them. Pom-poms anyone?

“School starts tomorrow and it is a long stretch before our next break. I hope I can maintain the necessary patience to withstand the hurricane storm of complaints that my students launch at me daily. I’ve decided that they are going to have to write them down. My skin is too thin and my conscience too weak to stand up against the daily barrage of whining. It’s tiresome enough to teach and to think of creative ways of connecting the material with their life let alone to swallow the excuses that pile up at your feet. Every student must take chemistry to graduate. What percentage of students would you imagine are grateful to be struggling to learn chemistry? A new rule will be written on the board tomorrow, ‘All complaints and excuses will have to be written for them to be considered.’ Perhaps I will start a blog for that, for my students to post their complaints. I can respond to them at home, at a distance.”

So… how does this relate to a dating blog? I’ll tell you. I find that a lot of my peers and I complain. We complain about the clueless members of the opposite sex, married people, society that makes us feel second rate, pain of rejection, bad blind dates, petty and manipulative women, creepy old men, bitter old-maids, and judgmental twenty-somethings, whatever we can find we complain. Don’t get me wrong – the world is full of complainers – not just single people. I KNOW we’re not an exception in that regard. I just know what I hear and I hear complaining. One friend says she is concerned because she feels like a lot of people wind up cursing God in their frustration. Whatever it looks like or sounds like I think it’s easy to fall in the trap of self pity and negativity. When I read my brother’s woes it occurred to me that we’re all a bunch of “chemistry students” in the school of life. We’ve been required to take a class we really don’t enjoy. Instead of complaining about it and making our “teacher” miserable maybe we should all just suck it up and try to learn something.

Actually, that sounds a lot harsher than I intended. When I first decided to share my brother’s words I wanted to share the fact that I think God has probably bent over backwards trying to help us understand. He’s provided endless resources for us to find solutions to our problems. He is available at all times to answer our questions and He’s even paid the ultimate price to enable us to repent and progress despite our weaknesses and short comings. But like my brother’s students I think we are quicker to complain than we are to take advantage of God’s help. Maybe my brother needs to create a gratitude blog, instead of one for complaining, since after all, gratitude brings more happiness than complaining.