An Attitude of Gratitude

A few nights ago, the night/morning of the epiphany, I had a really rough night. I have good days and bad days and this had actually been a rather rough entire weekend.
I remember being in a little bit of a panic because I was thinking about the talk I had been asked to give the following Sunday (this coming Sunday). The topic: how having an eternal perspective can help us to be grateful in any circumstance. Interesting timing...

I had read a great conference talk article that went along with this topic. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, a leader of my church, suggests that instead of focusing on being grateful FOR our circumstances, we should be grateful IN our circumstances. The whole idea behind this is that there are plenty of times in our lives when things are not always going so great and we feel less than grateful for what we are dealing with. But if we can have an attitude of gratitude no matter what, then we can continue to be grateful despite the rough times.

Makes sense...but so hard to implement in the moment of pure defeat.

That's how I was feeling that night. Just defeated. I'm not quite ready to tell the story that lead up to this most recent "low", but I will soon. It's an important part of the overall story that explains what led me to my current mission of experiencing self-love and acceptance and achieving something great for myself.

Anyway, that night - this was me...


The hardest nights are the ones when I don't have the kids and I just feel so alone.

And I was so worried about how I was going to give this talk about having an eternal perspective and how it can help you be grateful no matter what...
when I was anything but grateful or hopeful in that moment. 

But I tell you what, throughout this whole transition process, from the moment I realized that my life was changing and there was nothing I could do to stop it, up until this very second as I am writing this blog post, I have not been left alone. Even during the worst of it, when I felt so incredibly by myself in my struggles, one way or another I have received a "3am epiphany" of some sort and everything worked out and I received the strength I needed. 

It's been pretty amazing, actually.

I was talking to a friend not too long ago about how blessed I've been. I told her that I felt like Heavenly Father was throwing fast-ball-blessings at me constantly and it's nothing like I've ever experienced before. She then made the observation that I have probably always been that blessed, it was just that I never noticed them until this point in my life when I really needed them. No doubt she's right.

So maybe that's what it means to be grateful in our circumstances and not necessarily for our circumstances. There's nothing wrong with being sad or feeling defeated or begging to have the hard parts taken away. Even our Savior asked if the bitter cup could be removed. I think the important thing is how we choose to react to the bad circumstances in our day-to-day lives that really matters.

Fortunately, our Savior has also promised to make our burdens light. Boy, does he ever!

The thought of creating for myself a goal that would help me focus on self-love and healing was absolute inspiration born of encouragement from an unexpected source and the promptings of a loving Heavenly Father. Working toward a 5k is something I've always thought I would like to do someday but was too afraid to try. And I never would have thought that I could use it to help me get through this rough patch. There's no way I would have come up with this idea on my own or have the courage to go through with it.

So going back to having gratitude: I am so thankful that no matter what is going on, I know that I don't have to have all the answers. My Heavenly Father knows what I need. He knew that I needed to take the time to write out my story. He knew that I needed to focus on personal growth. He knew that even though for those few moments of despair when I felt like there was absolutely no hope of being truly happy, I would be able to experience the sun rise again and I would be comforted.

And now here I am, propelled with a determination that I didn't know that I had. And I feel so grateful. I still struggle with the eternal perspective part because it's hard to picture my eternal family in this moment, as broken as it is right now. But I can trust that He will help me get out of that trench as well. So even though my circumstance is not ideal...and its hard...and it sucks a lot of the time...I can still feel grateful.

I should probably start on that talk now.