Living in Gratitude instead of desire...

~To be honest, knowing that my husband is gone for a month and a half, combinbed with my hormones doing something crazy due to the fact that I have been pregnant or nursing since April 2004 and have recently weaned my baby, combined with issues in my family, combined with daily life..... make (for me) a hard time, and it very easy to focus on what is "lacking" in my life. I have a natural tendency to be a pessimist, and be negative, and I hate it.

My grandparents, who were some of the only christians in my family, were the most positive people. Toward the end of my grandfather's life, I became a christian, and we had that common bond. One day I asked him how he could be so happy when he was dying of Leukimia, and had recently lost my grandma. He told me that he told himself "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." throughout the day, and he said, "all things, what else is there?" Simple, but hard for me somehow. He said, it took him a lot of practice, but eventually, happiness and faith were his nature. He was given 6 months to live after being diagnosed with Leukimia, saying that it was all through his body. He lived for a year after that, golfed up until 2 weeks before he died, and up until the day before he died, not once swayed from his faith that Jesus would heal him. He'd leave the doctor, only really absorbing the positive news, never really even hearing all the negative things they were saying. I believe that positive outlook, allowed him to have a very full life, even while dying of cancer.

I read this article about teaching yourself to focus your attention on things that make you happy. "happiness is all about the allocation of attention. Getting more pleasure out of life, and increasing happiness can be done in many ways: By savoring sensory experiences (really feeling the warmth of the sun or tasting sweetness of a strawberry), becoming more engaged in what you do (being in the moment and blocking out thoughts/feelings that are not relative to that moment), and by finding ways of making your life feel more meaningful (volunteering, meditating, reaching out to those in need)."

~I am trying to teach myself to be happy, and to appreciate all the people in life that I have relationships with, whether here or far away, instead of focusing on all that is rocky, difficult and lacking. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." and I will focus on "whatever is pure, lovely, true...." (Philippians 4:8)