The life changing power of gratitude

The life changing power of gratitude

by | Aug 1, 2020 | Faith Blog, Mental Health

In the challenging times we are living in, it is more important than ever to deliberately look for things to be grateful for; to focus on what we do have, rather than what we don’t have.

I’m saying this to remind myself as much as anyone else.

I have to admit, I have struggled to be content about some things lately.  But I know from past experience, that no matter what you are going through, being grateful for what you do have can be truly life changing.

As we begin to focus on the positive things in our life, it tends to lift us up out of depression and pain and give us hope for the future.

One of my favorite people on You Tube, has recently purchased a 14th century mansion in the English country side.  Now they are completely redecorating it and purchasing luxury furniture to fit it out.

I have to admit, I have found it a bit hard to watch lately.  I live in a small, old, run down house on a main road and we still have quite a decent size mortgage.

But when I choose to be thankful on purpose, it changes my mindset completely.

I am so grateful that we have our own home.  It’s warm and cozy and it’s enough. 

I especially love how the sunshine streams in our bedroom window all day long – the sunshine is so healing.

As my husband has said many times:

‘it’s not much, but it’s ours and it’s full of love’.

I have to admit this is true.  It helps you to see beyond the cracks in the walls, the flaking paint on the window sills and the broken tiles around the fire place. 

But it is ours, and it is full of love.

This is something to be very grateful for.  And it reminds me of the miracle God has done in our 

For many, many years, our home was full of drunkenness, fighting, sadness, depression, anxiety and apathy.  We have been on the brink of divorce more than once.

It is truly a miracle that God has completely restored our marriage.  So much healing has come to our home.  It is now filled with peace, calm, laughter and love.  We love each other more now than we did, when we got married 30 years ago.

Many, many years ago, when things were at their worst in our marriage, I started to wish I had a different life partner.  I really thought it would be easier to start over.  Only the Grace of God stopped me from doing the unthinkable and betraying our sacred marriage vows. 

I will be forever grateful for one special person, who advised me:

Next time you feel like walking away, I want you to sit down and write down all the things you love about your husband.

This wasn’t easy and I really didn’t want to do it.  It felt like it would have been a lot easier to just walk away, but I followed their advice and before I knew it, I had written a list of more than 20 things I loved about my husband.  And I can tell you, it really helped.

It reminded me of the man I had fallen in love with and married.

Knowing that he was still in there, somewhere, buried deep within his own pain and numbed every night with large quantities of alcohol.

Writing this list of things I loved about my husband; things I was grateful for, really worked.  It was one of the things that helped me to stay the course, for well over fifteen years of heartache, when it looked like things would never change.

I am ever so glad that we stuck it out.  God has completely restored our marriage.  We love each other now more than ever. 

Now our house truly is ‘full of love’.

I am forever grateful to the person who told me to write down all the things I loved about my husband; all the things I was grateful for about him, when I was right at the point of walking away.

I know that many of you are facing the seemingly impossible right now.  Perhaps, like me, your marriage feels like it’s on the brink of break down; perhaps you have lost your job or you have had to close your business down; perhaps you have a child who has gone off the rails and is caught up in drug addiction.

No matter what is going on in your life, there is always things you can
be grateful for. 

I want to encourage you to take time today, and every day, to be grateful on purpose.

Write down what you do have, rather than focusing on what you don’t have.  You might be really surprised just how many things are still good in your life; things to be truly thankful for.

And the most surprising thing is how much better you feel, when you approach life through a lens of gratitude.

I guess this comes a little easier to me as I’m naturally a ‘glass half full’ kind of person, but even if you are a ‘glass half empty’ kind of person, you will be amazed at how much better you will feel, by choosing to be grateful on purpose.

In Philippians 4:11–13 the Bible says “I have learned to be content, whatever
the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry; whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all this through Him (God) who gives me strength”.

And if you are in need, as so many people are at this terrible time of the Coronavirus pandemic, God says in Philippians 4:6-7

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace which is beyond our understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”.

In the challenging times we are living in, it is more important than ever to deliberately look for things to be grateful for; to focus on what we do have, rather than what we don’t have.

I’m saying this to remind myself as much as anyone else.

I have to admit, I have struggled to be content about some things lately.  But I know from past experience, that no matter what you are going through, being grateful for what you do have can be truly life changing.

As we begin to focus on the positive things in our life, it tends to lift us up out of depression and pain and give us hope for the future.

One of my favorite people on You Tube, has recently purchased a 14th century mansion in the English country side.  Now they are completely redecorating it and purchasing luxury furniture to fit it out.

I have to admit, I have found it a bit hard to watch lately.  I live in a small, old, run down house on a main road and we still have quite a decent size mortgage.

But when I choose to be thankful on purpose, it changes my mindset completely.

I am so grateful that we have our own home.  It’s warm and cozy and it’s enough. 

I especially love how the sunshine streams in our bedroom window all day long – the sunshine is so healing.

As my husband has said many times:

‘it’s not much, but it’s ours and it’s full of love’.

I have to admit this is true.  It helps you to see beyond the cracks in the walls, the flaking paint on the window sills and the broken tiles around the fire place. 

But it is ours, and it is full of love.

This is something to be very grateful for.  And it reminds me of the miracle God has done in our marriage.

Our house wasn’t always full of love.

For many, many years, our home was full of drunkenness, fighting, sadness, depression, anxiety and apathy.  We have been on the brink of divorce more than once.

It is truly a miracle that God has completely restored our marriage.  So much healing has come to our home.  It is now filled with peace, calm, laughter and love.  We love each other more now than we did, when we got married 30 years ago.

Many, many years ago, when things were at their worst in our marriage, I started to wish I had a different life partner.  I really thought it would be easier to start over.  Only the Grace of God stopped me from doing the unthinkable and betraying our sacred marriage vows. 

I will be forever grateful for one special person, who advised me:

‘next time you feel like walking away, I want you to sit down and write down all the things you love about your husband’.

This wasn’t easy and I really didn’t want to do it.  It felt like it would have been a lot easier to just walk away, but I followed their advice and before I knew it, I had written a list of more than 20 things I loved about my husband.  And I can tell you, it really helped.

It reminded me of the man I had fallen in love with and married. 

Knowing that he was still in there, somewhere, buried deep within his own pain and numbed every night with large quantities of alcohol.

Writing this list of things I loved about my husband; things I was grateful for, really worked.  It was one of the things that helped me to stay the course, for well over fifteen years of heart ache, when it looked like things would never change.

I am ever so glad that we stuck it out.  God has completely restored our marriage.  We love each other now more than ever. 

Now our house truly is ‘full of love’.

I am forever grateful to the person who told me to write down all the things I loved about my husband; all the things I was grateful for about him, when I was right at the point of walking away.

I know that many of you are facing the seemingly impossible right now.  Perhaps, like me, your marriage feels like it’s on the brink of break down; perhaps you have lost your job or you have had to close your business down; perhaps you have a child who has gone off the rails and is caught up in drug addiction.

No matter what is going on in your life, there is always things you can be grateful for. 

I want to encourage you to take time today, and every day, to be grateful on purpose.

Write down what you do have, rather than focusing on what you don’t have.  You might be really surprised just how many things are still good in your life; things to be truly thankful for.

And the most surprising thing is how much better you feel, when you approach life through a lens of gratitude.

I guess this comes a little easier to me as I’m naturally a ‘glass half full’ kind of person, but even if you are a ‘glass half empty’ kind of person, you will be amazed at how much better you will feel, by choosing to be grateful on purpose.

In Philippians 4: 11 – 13 the Bible says “I have learned to be content, whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry; whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all this through Him (God) who gives me strength”.

And if you are in need, as so many people are at this terrible time of the Coronavirus pandemic, God says in Philippians 4:6-7.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition,
with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace which is beyond our understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”.

You can have peace despite the most stressful circumstances

You can have peace despite the most stressful circumstances

by | Jul 7, 2020 | Faith Blog, Mental Health

I want to say up front that I am not telling this story to put my husband down in any way.  Rather, I want to glorify God who restores marriages, even when it looks like it would be impossible.

I am married to a great guy, who was an alcoholic for over 30 years.

He stopped drinking 3 years ago – something I never thought would happen.  God’s restoration of our marriage is truly a miracle, given all that we have been through together.

One cold, dark night, about 11.30pm, my daughter, who was 4 years old, came rushing into our bedroom choking and struggling to breathe.  I had to get her to a doctor or hospital – and quickly!

I looked over at my husband, who was passed out drunk as usual and I knew I couldn’t leave my 2 year old son home while I sought medical assistance for my daughter, because if he needed any help, my husband would be too drunk to get up and help him.

So I woke my son up out of a sound sleep and bundled both the children into the car.

I knew that there was an after hours doctor’s clinic about half an hour and way, so I drove straight there.

When we got there, we found that it had closed for the night just 5 minutes earlier.  I was gutted – and worried.

I knew that there was a hospital about 10 minutes away, so I went to re-start the car, but it wouldn’t start.  The battery had died!

I checked my mobile phone – the battery was flat.  I couldn’t believe it!

How could all this be happening when I was in the middle of a medical emergency?

I had to get to a telephone so I could ring roadside assistance to get the car going.

I remembered that there was a Nursing Home just a few doors up, but it was a bitterly cold night and pouring in rain and I knew I couldn’t take the children with me.  It would only make my daughter sicker.  But I didn’t want to leave them alone in the car either.  I didn’t know what to do.

I turned to my daughter and said ‘can you be a really brave little girl and look after your baby brother? Mummy has to go and find someone with a phone.  She bravely nodded ‘yes’.

I locked the car and prayed that no-one would find the children in the car.

I went a few doors up to the Nursing Home and told them I needed to use their phone to ring roadside assistance.  They wouldn’t even let me come inside the building!  But they passed me a phone through the window so I could make the phone call.  I thanked them and ran back to my car, hoping that the kids were fine.  They were.

The operator at roadside assistance said that someone would be there within about 45 minutes.

We would just have to wait.

It was freezing cold in the car, but I put both kids on my lap, covered us all with a big jacket and waited for help to come.

It was during this 45 minutes wait that I realised that I had a choice about how I could respond here.  I absolutely love the preacher, Joyce Meyer, and in the past week, she had preached about how God would give us His peace despite our circumstances.  God reminded me of these timely messages.

I chose to be at peace – despite my daughter still struggling to breathe, despite the fact that our car had broken down, despite the fact that my husband was passed out drunk when I really needed him.

I could choose how to respond – and I chose peace.

I cuddled the children and helped them get back to sleep while I calmly waited for roadside assistance.

I prayed and prayed, but I continued to choose to be at peace and calm.

The level of peace I felt was unbelievable.  That’s why the Bible calls God’s peace “the peace that passes understanding”.  It is a peace that looks to be impossible given the situation.

God is faithful.

Approximately 45 minutes later, the roadside assistance man came and jump-started my car.

I quickly drove to the hospital and just as I got to the main emergency entrance, where the ambulances drive in and my car died again in the middle of the emergency drive way.  No ambulances or other vehicles could get in or out because my car was in the way.

I just left the car in the middle of the driveway and took the children into the emergency room.

To my surprise, my daughter had actually improved while all this was going on.  Her breathing was much better.  By the time we got to see a doctor, they gave her some oxygen but said that she should be fine.  They said that with things like this, the cold night air can actually help!

Meanwhile, some staff from the hospital came and pushed my car off the driveway so that ambulances could still get in and out.

It was about 2.00am by now.  I knew I would have to get roadside assistance out again to get my car started again, so I used a public phone at the hospital to call for them to come out again. 

I then tried to ring my husband.  I rang and rang and rang, trying to get hold of him to let him know what was happening and that I could use his help.  He didn’t answer – no doubt he was too drunk to get to the phone.

Another hour later, roadside assistance came again, but the technician was a horrible man and he started yelling at me for not ‘servicing’ my battery.  Apparently, with these kinds of batteries, you had to regularly top them up with water.  I had never heard of such a thing.  Plus it was a really, really old, bomb of a car.  I had endless battery problems and breakdowns, but couldn’t afford to buy anything better.  I told the technician that I didn’t know I had to put water in the battery regularly.  He kept yelling at me.

I knew I just had to stay calm and ‘hold my tongue’, even though he was behaving like a bully.  Here I was, stuck in the driveway of a hospital at 2.00am in the morning, with two small children and this was the second break down I’d had for the night.

He should have had empathy for the plight I was in – but he didn’t.  I kept my mouth shut, while he replaced the battery.  I thanked him very much for his help and began driving home.

It was now that I started feeling angry at my husband.  He didn’t have to work the next day – but I did!  I could feel myself getting angrier and angrier, but once again, I remembered that I could choose to hold my temper and stay at peace.

We finally got home about 2.30am in the morning.  I woke my husband up to tell him what had happened, but he couldn’t care less.  He was just annoyed that I had woken him up.  All I had wanted was a little bit of empathy – just an arm around me telling me he was sorry for what I’d been through, but I didn’t get that.  He went straight back to sleep.  I tucked the kids back in bed and they went back to sleep.  I went to bed and contemplated the night’s events.

It was truly miraculous that God had kept me at peace in the most stressful of circumstances.

I thanked God for this peace and his strength and went to sleep.

“And the peace of God which is beyond our understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”  Phillipians 4:7 (The Bible)

You can have peace despite the most stressful circumstances

My journey out of a deep depression

My journey out of a deep depression

by | Jun 17, 2020 | Faith Blog, Mental Health

In January of this year, my husband and I were in more pain than we’ve been in for many, many years.  Our pain was so intense.  It was a physical force, attacking our mind and body in continuous blows day and night.

I had forgotten how bad depression felt –
really bad depression.

My husband had lost his job on the last day of work before the Xmas break.  It was totally unexpected – a real shock.  His boss kept saying ‘don’t take it personally’, but how can you not take it personally?

If it’s not personal, then why me?  Why now? 

He was an excellent employee.  He didn’t have a single sick day in his first 12 months on the job.  He always got to work early.  He worked at late as required – overnight when necessary.  Even though lunch breaks were almost unheard of, he never complained.

So it seemed really, really unfair.

Now this, by itself, could have easily led to depression – or at least shock and sadness, but the bigger problem, we’d had hard (and sometimes) devastating things happen to us for years.

We were battle weary.  Enough was enough.

Every time something goes wrong, my husband gets angry at God.  I don’t.  I keep trusting God – until this time.

My husband was in the depths of despair and so was I.  Seeing the pain that he had been through over and over and over again was unbearable – I couldn’t bear to see his pain any more.  I “lost it”. 

I started screaming at God “I hate you.  I hate you”. 

Something I have never felt or said before.  I broke down and sobbed floods of tears in my anguish.

I lost my faith that God was good.

How could God be good – when He let so many bad things happen to people.  I had never felt this way before.

When I lost my faith in God, that’s when the really serious depression really hit.

The physical and emotional pain was palpable.  It was unbearable.

Down, down, down we went into a world that only had depression – nothing else.

Thankfully, I realised that it was my “thinking” that was really making me depression worse.

The more I thought “poor us”, “my poor husband”, “God isn’t good” or “God doesn’t care about us”, the more depressed I got.  My faith in God had always brought me through hard times in the past.

Thankfully, I had the realisation that it was my thoughts that were dragging me down.

I also realised that no longer trusting in God was also dragging me down.

So I did two things:

  1. I finally made a decision to change my thoughts; AND
  2. I decided to deliberately put my faith in God again.

I didn’t feel like trusting God.  I felt that He had really let us down, but I was DESPERATE to feel better.  I had hit my rock bottom and I could not physically stand to feel that depth of pain anymore.

To my surprise, just changing these two things started helping me to feel better quite quickly.

Not fully better straight away, but just a step or two better.

Enough to help me to keep moving forward.

Slowly but surely, I climbed out of the deep depression.

I started deliberately thinking of all the things I was grateful for

– simple things like having clean drinking water and being able to have a hot shower any time I felt like it with just with a turn of a tap.  I was grateful that I have arms and legs that work – many people don’t.

I started also started to remind myself of the ways I had seen God work in the past.

I recalled Romans 8:28 “All things work together for good, to them that love God”.

I had seen this come true many times in my life.  Hard, hard things in the past that I could see God worked out for my good in the end.

I continued to slowly climb out of the deep depression.

I started reading the Bible again and found scriptures like these ones:

Psalms 86: 4 “Bring joy to your servant, Lord, for I put my trust in you.”

Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him.”

And my favourite in Proverbs 3: 5 and 6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways submit to Him and He will make your paths straight”.

This reminded me to stop try to work it all out myself.  Stop asking ‘why’.

Just choose to trust God – no matter what the circumstances looked like.

It probably took about a week, but I slowly returned to some semblance of normality through choosing the trust God and to be grateful on purpose.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying this is a magic pill for clinical depression.  I’ve been on medication for depression for half my life and it has been a tremendous help.  But it’s helpful realising that it’s more than just medication. 

When you are in a deep depression, it can help to:

1) choose to be grateful and

2) choose to trust your Creator.

Try it – and see how it goes.

I would love to hear your stories in the comments below.

Can you relate to my story?

What are some things that have helped you crawl out of a deep depression?

 

 

My journey back from a deep depression in 2020