Wings of a Grateful Heart :)

I was at work yesterday and my co-worker started just talking about God with me.  She is an amazing lady! We got on the topic of gratefulness.  She was saying she had some friends challenge her to do 7 days of thankful/gratefulness on facebook.  She said she thought it was interesting how hard it was a first, but good.

This whole conversation got me thinking about gratefulness in my life.  I look back to even a couple years ago and how different my life was.  And how many things I worried about and stressed over. Even as a kid my mom used to make comments about how I was little miss pessimistic.

Honestly, this world can be more than a little scary and painful.  It gets really hard sometimes to see all the things that God has blessed us with.  And the devil knows right where to try and blind side us so we loose focus on God.  Whether it is through just little things going wrong in the day to big things like family dysfunction or problems at work, it does not take long sometimes for me to feel like I get in a tailspin I can't seem to pull out of.

Back nearly 2 years ago when I totally surrendered to God, I see how my thoughts have started changing. In one of my earliest posts I wrote about God winks, good things that happen in the day, gifts from God. My one friend from work at the time had talked to me about this and given me the book on it.  I started writing down my God winks.  I would write down things like I got a discount on a shirt at target that was unexpected, a co-worker walked by and said I did a good job with a patient, or even that I saw a beautiful flower growing in my yard I hadn't noticed.

Soon these things begin to add up. I started in my prayers in the morning to God with things I was grateful for like my job, house, nice neighbors, beautiful sunrise, even my ornery little cat :)  Looking back I see how focusing on these things have transformed my spirit and my thoughts.  I'm ,more days than not, full of joy and wonder at how blessed I am!  I see more and more God working in my life and the lives of others around me.  The eyes of my heart are becoming more and more trained to find the  blessing and jewels in life instead of all the junk. 

Now, I'm by no means perfect in this. It took me 3+ weeks to get over my  recent vacation blues, and I have had many times over the last couple years where I have been sad because of certain things going on.  The interesting thing is that through those times I have a sense of hope because my heart is trained for gratefulness.

• Psalms 147: 7-11 : "Sing to the Lord with grateful praise; make music to our God on the harp.
   He covers the sky with clouds;
  he supplies the earth with rain
  and makes grass grow on the hills.
   He provides food for the cattle
  and for the young ravens when they call.
   His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse,
  nor his delight in the legs of the warrior;
   the Lord delights in those who fear him,
  who put their hope in his unfailing love" NIV

 God is SOOOOOO Good and He loves us so much!  Lift your eyes to see all the small and maybe even big things in the day that God gives!  From the roof over your head to the ornery little munchkin or mutt that welcomes you home at night :) Daily gratefulness to God can transform your life from the inside out!

So I love cows. So this was what I was grateful for this weekend. :)

Tiniest little baby cow I had ever seen!  Now how can that not make you smile :)

What things can you be grateful for? Let your spirit soar on the wings of a grateful heart!