A short while ago I woke up feeling very sorry for myself.
I blew my pity party balloons and got ready to wallow in my sad state… oh AND I had a bottle of misery just waiting to be downed by me.
I thought prayer would help and so I started: “Oh God please help me…” and as I begun to utter my very long list of complaints (including ailments that had enveloped my body) – I thought Father would comfort me and tell me everything would be just fine- instead I heard Him say: “Oh quit whining and be grateful!!!”
In that moment I made a decision. I realised that, yeah, I was going through a rubbish patch but I had so much more to be grateful for.
That entire day each time I caught myself about to complain – I held my tongue and instead said something positive – or highlighted something I felt was a blessing or evidence of the Father’s grace.
That day, for the first time in a long time, the physical pain I’d been feeling stopped. My mood changed and my spirits were lifted. All because I chose to think and speak different.
I popped my pity party balloons, decided to take a nice hot bath instead of wallow in the mud of despair and chucked out the bottle of misery that had been waiting by my bedside.
It’s easy to complain. Without even trying I’m sure you’ll find that there is ALWAYS something to complain about.
There are many times when we feel we’ve earned a pity party and we are extremely generous in allowing ourselves to indulge in being down.
There’s a lot of power in being grateful.
We are strengthened when we choose to speak positive words and words of life.
We are made weak and become easy to defeat when we fill our mouths with words of doom and gloom.
We miss so much when we choose to complain instead of standing strong on the power of gratitude.
Complaining contaminates every area of our lives and sucks the energy out of everything and everyone we come into contact with.
Life isn’t perfect for anyone. It may be easier for some but the truth is: We each have those moments when we just want to turn the lights out – crawl into bed and die for a while.
I may sound dramatic but I’m almost certain you know what I mean.
Sometimes you can’t control the things that happen to you. But you can control how you allow them to affect you.
And sometimes the most powerful thing to do in the face of adversity is to give thanks.
The power of that will, almost always, trump the floods of misfortune that face us all at one point or other.
Hannah Viviers is founder of Hannah Viviers Business Training and Author of mommy24.com. She recently started the amazing Facebook Page: ‘Why Africa is Great’
You’re welcome to leave a comment or email Hannah directly at hannahviviers@yahoo.com