Gratitude is a State of Mind

November 19th – Day 19 – Mental Challenge and Journey of Gratitude

I dedicate myself this 19^th day to focus on all that is nourishing, advancing, and promising! PNS

“God and I work together to create my peace, and I begin that process by releasing expectations about the behavior of others.  It is easier to move forward in love and respect when I remember that in Truth we are all spiritual beings having a human experience.  We are all expressions of God.” ~ Daily Word

“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.” ~ Matthew 7:12

God is my source of unlimited good.  Centered in this awareness, I give thanks for prospering ideas and I open to the goodness of God in full measure. ~ Silent Unity

“Therefore the humble is the root of the noble.” ~ Lao Tsu

To step off the edge is the only way to really know God has got the rope and is not going to let you fall.  Each day since my dear friend’s grandson has been in the hospital battling a brain tumor and side-affects to the treatments, I have prayed for him and his family.  Each day I say The Prayer of Protection using his name:

The Light of God Surrounds Us

The Love of God Enfolds Us

The Power of God Protects Us

The Presence of God Watches Over Us

Wherever We Are, God Is

By James Dillet Freeman

And while praying I have crocheted a lap afghan for my friend.  I hope that as she wraps the afghan across her lap, she will feel God’s love and remember that she and her family are loved.

Life is like a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it. “Act as though I am and I will be.” ~ The Science of Mind

Peter Bolland tells the story of how writing a daily gratitude journal changed his life.  I started my most recent gratitude journal on March 12, 2012, which was the 64^th wedding anniversary of the day my parents were married.  Now three years later I have come to realize what Bolland realized – it’s not the product (of the list) but the process.  Being grateful is a state of mind.  I get that now.

“I didn’t change the world. I changed the way I saw the world.” ~ Peter Bolland

“Practice gratitude daily and your life will change in ways you can hardly imagine.”

~ Rev. Ruth Wallace

Tomorrow is not meant as an escape from today!

November 3 - Day Three - 30 Day Challenge

I dedicate myself on this third day to focus on all that is nourishing, advancing, and promising!

Yesterday, I failed in the nourishing department. Leftover Tootsie Rolls from the over 200 "trick or treaters" were too much of a temptation. 

While crocheting a prayer shawl for a dear friend whose grandson is in the hospital fighting cancer, I came across this Jewish Shawl Blessing:

 

Bar-chi naf-shi et A-do-nai.

Praise the Eternal one, O my soul!

O God, You are very great!

 

As I center my thoughts on loving others, I remember these words:

 

"You shall love your neighbors as yourself.  There is no other commandment greater."

~ Mark 12:31

 

From Silent Unity: "I envision and affirm peace for the world."

 

Over the years I have met older people who find themselves returning to the church to be closer to God.  Because their mortality is in question, and fear of not much time left, they want to leave this world, "in good standing," as some have said.  I have compassion for this need "to meet God."  But, I am, however, comforted by the words of Jesus when his disciples asked him, "What is God's relationship to the dead?"  He replied, "God is not a God of the dead but of the living, for in His sight all are alive."  For me, this means that we clearly live in a spiritual universe where our human forms change but not our spiritual forms.  My thoughts, my body, my life all live so that God can live through me.

 

Tomorrow is not meant as an escape from today.  Being grateful for what I have now only increases and supports the abundance that surrounds me.