I know I’ve written on this topic a few times, but today I felt it really needed to be brought back around… mainly for me. So sorry to break it to y’all, but this blog is so much for me and for my processing of my thoughts and feelings. I’m SO very grateful that anyone else gets anything out of this. It’s so funny to be a writer… often I find myself wondering does anyone care about this at all?
I wrote about gratitude over at Impact Women and I was just re-reading my own words- does anyone else do that?- and I was wondering why I don’t employ gratitude in my life even more than I currently do! Gratitude is so powerful and it’s such a perspective shifter!
I have to be a little transparent with you guys… if you haven’t picked up from the last few blogs about surrender and release, I’ve been walking through a rough summer. Okay, maybe that’s not the word. I’ve been walking through a summer that has tried my faith- strengthened- my faith. I was just talking with a dear friend about this and I told her to be careful what you pray for. I have desired to grow deeper in my faith and to become even closer to my heavenly Father- leaning into him more and the world less- and boy has He given me ample opportunities this summer to do that!
But just the other day I was able to use gratitude as the catalyst for perspective shifting. What I tend to do is I hold so very closely to the thing that I think God is going to do. I pray over the direction I want things to turn. I ask God boldly for what I’m needing to see, but I know and trust that His will will prevail and be best.
It wasn’t until I one hundred percent surrendered the outcome to Him that I started to see what He was doing. You see, I thought deliverance was going to come through my business. I thought that getting out of the last bit of debt we’re in was going to come through the growth in my business that I felt was on the horizon. Half way through the year, as I’m white knuckling this thing, God finally asked that I just give it all the way over to Him so that He could show me what He had in store.
Very shortly there after, God showed me that the deliverance was coming from a completely different direction- but that it was coming. Praise God that I don’t know everything. But hey! If I had never let it go, I don’t think the deliverance would have come at all.
I had to stand in gratitude over the fact that I do not have it all under control. Can you imagine a control freak like me being grateful that I wasn’t in control? Oh the peace it brings to know and understand that I actually am not holding the reigns.
GRATITUDE can change the game.
If you didn’t catch it the first time around, make sure you pop on over to Impact Women to read a few quick tips as to why we should make gratitude a core part of our intentional life.