July 8, 2011
Writing for 5 minutes brings many surprises and and equal number of OOOH’s.
Today’s prompt is GRATEFUL; this is one of my soap boxes.
go……
My first real pondering on being grateful began several years ago when I read ‘Simple Abundance’ by Sarah Ban Breathnach. Her steps toward an abundant life begins with gratitude; then adding order and simplicity to our lives brings harmony whose natural result is beauty and joy.
I realized gratitude started with my acceptance of the gift: sometimes with the deep sigh of “Okay, Lord” and sometimes with gladness.
Gratitude needed me to surrender my preconceived plans and ideas to be lasting, and for gratitude to be completely real, I needed to submit to God the acceptance and surrendering to the only ONE who really had all things under control.
Acceptance + surrender+commitment = Gratitude
Did you know gratitude and discontentment can’t live in the same heart?
stop……
Quote from book:
Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend … when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present-love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature, and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure –the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth. Sarah Ban Breathnach
Thoughts of Grace 