Being in the state of gratitude can be by far one of the most important things that we can do in life. One of life’s greatest lesson is that the more that you express gratitude towards the people and the things that we are blessed with, the more of those great things are manifested into our lives.
Gratitude is one of the easiest things that can be lost when we are facing trials.
One of my biggest dream was to own a house where my girls could have plenty of room for their stuff. A huge front lawn for them to play and a huge back yard for them to do their gardening. For one reason or another we weren’t able to purchase a house. We lived in a two bedroom apartment, one room for my 4 girls and the other one for my husband and me. I was sad that my girls had to be crammed into one room.
Then we got the opportunity to rent a three bedroom apartment and at first I was happy, but as the time went on, that began to change. We had extra room but that was still not the dream that I had. After two years of living there, we had another baby girl so of course I wanted a nursery but’ I felt that I didn’t have the room and I felt frustrated. As time passed I learned more in depth about this wonderful thing called gratitude. I began to practice to be more grateful for not only of what I had but of the awesome people that were around me.
By our third year in our 3 bedroom apartment, we had to move out due to foundation issues in our building. With such short notice from the manager, we weren’t able to find a home to fit our budget and to accommodate such a big family….so we ended up moving into my parents’ house.
Since I was practicing gratitude, I was very grateful for my parents letting us stay with them for a few months. But now we had 7 rooms worth of stuff in storage and now we had 4 girls sleeping in ONE bed and my husband, our baby and me sleeping on an air mattress (that was new but didn’t hold any air, so we would wake up on the floor in the middle of the night).
After having one of those rough days, I laid wide awake in bed one night. I began to pray in depth. “Thank you Heavenly Father for this day. Thank you for the roof over our heads. Thank you that my children are in a bed. Thank you that we have food on our plates for every meal and over all thank you for my parents.”
After that night I would just give thanks in detail for the things that I was grateful for. We were so desperate to live on our own though so we rented a two bedroom apartment. Boy were we grateful and extremely happy for our two bedroom apartment even though we had less room then in our last apartment.
So happiness doesn’t come from having everything in life or having everything in order. Happiness happens after the expression of gratitude for what you do have.
Finding gratitude in life is important….especially when you are having trouble seeing the light.
Much love, peace and joy from,
The Peaceful Mama
“He who receives all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious” D&C 78:19;
Love this, i need to express more gratitude for the things i do have. Thank you for sharing.
You are so welcome and thank you for leaving your wonderful comment. It made my day to read it.
It’s so hard to be grateful for what you have, it is normal to want better to want more, but sometimes you realize what you have is more than you think, that what you have is enough, maybe more than enough. Great post, thanks, I needed this reminder.
Love this! I so agree! I kept a gratitude journal and wrote in it at bedtime! I also told my self ten or twenty things I was grateful for “in my head” as I fell asleep. Such a special tool to have in your life toolbox!