I've been in a bit of a funk lately. I try not to think like the world in regards to life and having things by a certain age. However, this birthday the world's mentality was a like a mosquito bit sucking the blood and almost the fun of my entire birthday. I turned 29 on September 5th. I never realized until this year how scary the number 29 looked. It looked scary on my birthday cake. It looked scary when I had to recently write it on a form. It just looks scary! When you want to try to believe something, it all begins with acceptance. My way of accepting 29 was making a cool catch phrase on my birthday cake, which was 'I Don't Mind 29' because I truly wanted to accept this new age. Well, it didn't work. Nothing worked. Mostly because the funk started before my birthday and the scary 29 just added to feelings of failure and paranoia.
Last week, I met with a Pastor that a love and respect because of his honesty and kind words. He suggested that I begin looking at my life in a different way and begin to be thankful. He asked me to state things I was thankful for. I was happy to report to him that I had that same revelation the day prior and started making a grateful list in my journal. I wrote down everything I was thankful/grateful for that happened to me that day. I actually listed 19 things. I did the same thing the next day and the next day and have since fallen off the wagon, but in my prayers I try to list a few things. I came up with an acronym for the word thanks.
THANKS stands for:
Thoughtful Heart Always Nice and Kind Speech
By having a thoughtful heart, I can block it from the negative that is around me. I have to train my heart to accept the good things about myself and others, which is no easy task. The 'Always Nice and Kind Speech' part is a work in progress. I'm the type of person that negative can easily flow out of my mouth. I don't want it to or mean it to, but it just does. And it's not always about other people - sometimes it's about me, which is not good at all. Most of the time my worst critic is myself. Pray for me because I want that to stop. I do believe that if I can get my heart in order, than the speech would surely follow. It all begins with thanks. Let me leave you with a list of my thanks for yesterday and encourage you to think in terms of thanks today.
1. Safe driving in my car
2. Flat iron arrived today from Amazon
3. Talked to mom and she is fine
4. People read my blog!
5. I have 3 followers on my blog.
6. God is giving me the words for the blog.
7. Speedy service everywhere I went
8. Starting to understand the book of Isaiah
9. Learning more about my friends
10. Very productive meeting at work - feel more confident about the project and my ability to lead it
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Thank you for saying outloud what I experience inside.
ReplyDeleteAwesome. Good for you!
ReplyDeleteBear in mind too - 29 is an AWESOME age to be - and it's going to get better and even more fun into your 30's.
Every year we are alive is a good year! Keep being thankful and make the most of your days. We came in this world with nothing and will leave with nothing. Nothing is promised or guaranteed in this life. But as the old cliches go, when we ask, we shall receive. And when we send up the praise, the blessing will come down. At times, it's a struggle when I'm not blessed how I want to be but I stay thankful because I'm always blessed with what I need!
ReplyDeleteBig-ups to your pastor for the advice!
Great blogs so far!
Jennie
ReplyDeleteI suffer from the same thing. In fact I have had a lot of worries on my mind. I actually only got two hours of sleep do. I can say I am truly exhausted. I did want to let you know that I can think pretty negatively myself. I often times have trouble being thankful, because things are not perfect. Where the heck did that come from. Perfection. Urghhhh! I am the least perfect person I know and I should so focus on perfection.