Post It Note: Have you flexed your gratitude muscle lately?

So often I hear from friends (with and without disabilities) how discouraged they are, how many problems they have and about why they can't see a way out of their problems.

Maybe I'll run into them a week or so later and I'll ask how the problem is and people will say "Oh that! It's fine now."

I'll say "I bet you're grateful for that."

I often get a funny look and they'll start talking about yet another problem. Sometimes I feel as if they are competing to prove they have the worst problems in the world! But I realize this happens because they are missing a key ingredient- gratitude.

I, too, forget to be grateful a lot of times. I take things for granted when problems pass and things improve. I skip over the part where I bow my head, flex my gratitude muscle and thank God for His help. I don't tell people I am grateful for their help And, worse yet, the more I skip flexing my gratitude muscle, the more likely I am to be negative when another problem comes along.

There is something about practicing gratitude that puts me in a more humble and positive state of being. Why?

It makes me more positive as I realize how much God and others care about me and for me.
It humbles me that God and others care so much about me.
It encourages me spiritually to do for others as others have done for me.
It empowers me to have greater faith.

So why do I still "forget " to do it sometimes? You'd think I would want to stay in gratitude all of the time! Look at all of the wonderful gifts that come from practicing gratitude.

Like my friends, I think I sometimes avoid doing the work involved in being positive and grateful. It's easier to decline into being negative. We are surrounded by a lot of negativity in our world. The news is bad or worse when we put TV on. Gas prices go up, not down. Our jobs get more hectic, not easier. And on and on.

So we have to work at doing something positive. It's an inside job. It takes time and effort to stop ourselves short and go against the negative trend. We have to pay attention to our spiritual state of mind and make the time to simply say "Thank you" to God and others.

As with many spiritual things, the reward far exceeds the effort. But we don't realize that unless we put it into practice. So a gentle reminder to flex our gratitude muscle just doesn't hurt!