The day was November 26th, 2014… it was the day before Thanksgiving. I was compiling a list of things for which to be thankful. 2014 was the year my then-husband had decided life would be better with someone else, my father passed away and I lost a job I’d had for 22 years. Yeah, rough year! But I had found an article that I took as a personal challenge: Letting Go of a Relationship with Gratitude. It’s about learning to focus on the positive aspects of an ending relationship, whether a friendship, job… mine being my marriage. It also encourages you to look into the learning experiences (whether good or bad) that came from the relationship. The article encourages you to have a Gratitude Journal.
As I thought back on that year and started my Gratitude Journal, the items came slowly at first. I found myself praying a LOT and using the last of the tissues in the box! My thoughts went to things my friends and my kids said and did for me and began to realize there were many things for which to be thankful. Hard year? YES! However, through all of it, I had learned so many things about my Savior and experienced, intimately, His overwhelming love and grace. How could I not be thankful?! I may not be thankful FOR everything that happened, but I was certainly thankful IN all those things! I also became thankful for the wonderful things that had happened during my marriage… kids, vacations, friendships and memories.
Sometime in the last 5 years I’ve misplaced that journal. I moved 5 times and put almost 50,000 miles on my Jeep! That journal might be hiding in a box somewhere. Honestly, it doesn’t bother me that it may have gotten thrown away somewhere along the way. God had used that one article to show me what 1 Thessalonians 5:18 truly means and those truths won’t leave my grateful mind anytime soon!! I really should start a new Gratitude Journal though. This one will highlight the amazing things I’ve learned about how God redeems the ugly things that can happen!
- Annie Nance