Please Make Me Thankful...Wait, I Take It Back.

One of my greatest aspirations is to be thankful. I'm not just talking about the fallback thankful things- family, friends, job, ect.- though, by-golly, those things are swell and all, but I'm talking the things that don't occur to us to be thankful for. Examples? well, alright, if you insist: having somewhere to come back to after being out all day, the sound of your mom/dad getting home, everyday things like electricity, water, food, a bed to get into at night and out of every morning, you get my drift?
      In America, lets be real, no one has to trek two miles to a well to fill a bucket for drinking water, more like: "hmm... 'Auquafina', 'Dasani', oooh 'Pure Life', or maybe whats this? 'Arrowhead'? that sounds cool, probably something Legolas would drink...but hey, you can't go wrong with 'Smart Water', right?! It has a pretty groovy bottle after all." really people? but honestly that's how the majority of us think!
      So, to not fall prey to this sort of thinking (though I do....some the time...gee wiz, okay, almost all the time) I try to pray everyday that God would make me thankful for everything I take for granted. I've been praying this same thing for quite a number of years now, and though, yes, I was definitely thankful for things of course, there didn't seem to be a whole lot of difference. I realize now that I wanted God to just reach down and -POOF- make me thankful all the time- I might as well have wished that they wouldn't label everything in the 1960's Batman!
     This year, however, God helped me to do just that, be thankful. Earlier, somewhere at the beginning- mid fall, the car I use (my precious, silver, dented Kia) started having issues so I had to switch over to using my grandmas old car she gave to my family. Don't get me wrong, my grandma is rad, she's the raddest thing since the portable tape player. but still- it wasn't my Kia. The biggest downside? The front passenger window is stuck. DOWN. Yes, you heard correct, peeps- down. So, its getting into fall, and I have to drive on the highway with it at least once a week for about 50 mins, if it didn't occur to you, this can get quite chilly. I do blast the heat, yes, or I wouldn't be here to tell you this story today.
      The weather as you, my scholarly reader, gets colder and  colder as the year goes on, so then came the mid-end of November. I was getting pretty frustrated with having to drive this car, and having to look like I was gearing up for yeti hunting every-time I went for a drive. We tried taping the window shut with plastic but every time, without fail or consulting me, it would tear off. I was lucky when the plastic would just blow off, the worst times were when I was going 70 mph, it rips and then starts flapping around, honestly, as loud as a gunshot. I had to pull over three separate times to repair/pull of the plastic because the sound was so bad, almost as bad as having the song "Gangnam Style" stuck on replay.
       I was pretty embittered that, out of everyone in my family I was the one that had to drive the dreaded red car. Then, one night, while driving home with a blanked on my lap, gloves, a hat, long-sleeves, two hoodies, a Starbucks coffee and the heat on 'hell-fire'- it hit me (not literally, of course, cause that would just be weird).

-Maybe this is God's answer to my prayer-

 You know the saying,"You don't know what you have until it's gone"? (excuse my Psych reference but-) You know that's right! I don't think I will ever take windows and car-heating for granted again (at least, one can hope). So I realized that praying for God to make you thankful seems easy but the process TO thankfulness we usually miss or misinterpret.Maybe there is something going on in your life like this, maybe less grim than this, or possibly not so lighthearted but if you are trusting in Christ, that he has a purpose for all that He does, believe me, it will turn out for the better.  
     To sum it all up, I still pray that God would help to make me thankful for things I take for granted, but I also ask that He would give me the strength to do so. <3 
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Oh, and the car window is still stuck down.  

“Perhaps it takes a purer faith to praise God for unrealized blessings than for those we once enjoyed or those we enjoy now.” 

― A.W. Tozer

  "Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him, bless his name! " 

-Psalm 100:4

“Those blessings are sweetest that are won with prayer and worn with thanks.” 

― Thomas Goodwin

Why Be Happy When I can NOT Be?

I think that people have a misconstrued view of happiness.
people who are actually happy- whats up with them? Everyone has their own story, and I know that sometimes it's hard not to compare your story to someone else's you know- even Edgar Allen Poe had a longstanding rivalry with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (a poet) back in the day. Sometimes the people who are unhappy take out that unhappiness on those who are happy. But hold on a just a second, that's a whole lot of happy and unhappiness going on right there- so what IS the definition of happy?

HAPPY: 
1. delighted, pleased, or glad, as over a particular thing.

2. characterized by or indicative of pleasure, contentment, or joy 

So there you have it folks, happiness in a nutshell, right? Every single person on this revolving planet has different difficulties, tragedies, sorrows, hardships, challenges and joys. but we all have one thing, life. referring back to the definition of happy- the first example is joy over a particular thing- life is a thing. you can't argue that fact. if your alive you have something to be happy, pleased, glad and delighted about. the definition doesn't say: 

"Happy- being characterized by joy and gladness but only if your past and present circumstances allow you to be and you have a great life which enables you to feel so." 

      no one would be happy if that's what happiness was, thank the Lord that it isn't! What some people don't seem to realize is that it's much harder to have a good attitude and be happy than it is to be depressed all the time. Gee, I just get depressed when I don't feel like I have the energy to do anything else. That sounds pretty lazy right? believe me I know. But before you start getting frustrated about me not knowing what I'm talking about- I also know this isn't the case for everyone. Some people have things going on in their lives that it seems no one should ever have to go through, and those people have reason to be depressed all the time (or most of the time)... Um, no. sorry, maybe that sounds like the right answer for a lot of people today but it's not the truth, it would be a lot EASIER if it were, but it's not. 

      Look, my mom and dad aren't divorced, I love my brothers and sisters (though we all go through rough patches- okay, sometimes cactus-like patches, but still) and I have friends that I would truly die for, not just as a figure of speech. I've still been through plenty, I've cried myself to sleep sometimes, I've had to leave the house just to get away from what was going on inside, I've felt like screaming or kicking something, I've felt helpless and many more things. But you know what differs between two people who go through hard things and come out either woebegone or actually happy? the choice TO BE HAPPY. Happiness doesn't just come skipping up the road and decide to make it's home inside you- ppphhht. Its a decision, a really, really,really,very, incredibly important choice. No one controls it but you. Not the Jerks, not the pessimists, not the hurt, not the gossipers, not the judgmentals, not physical or psychological things,not your girlfriend/boyfriend, not the betrayers, not your parents, not where you are in life, not how many times you feel like giving up,not even other happy people, or anything else that comes to mind. you do. That makes it a lot harder now doesn't it? though some people would tell you otherwise, when we are unhappy we use these exact things as crutches to be such. Its your happiness, so don't blame other people's sinfulness or contentedness with the state of it. 
      Like anything in life, it comes with time. a priceless treasure doesn't happen over night, it happens with time. Happiness is a treasure. NO ONE is happy all year: 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, 8,765 hours, 525,949 minutes, 31,536,000 seconds. Just try being happy on a hard day- you know how hard it is. But nothing worth having comes easily. I'm not just talking about the happiness that shows, but the happiness that is a part of who you are. because, lets face it, it's not as if while our parents are fighting or our friends are hurting us we walk around with a smile on our face all happy. No, I'm also talking about the kind that is still there while going through the trials we all face. The kind that still gives us hope and helps carry us through those times of loneliness- if you keep reading, I'll tell you how you can have this kind of hapiness. 
      Other then some other things going on in my life, here's the quote that sparked this blog post: 

"I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing."

-Agatha Christie 

      Anyone and everyone is capable of doing something great in this world, I don't care what anyone else has told you out of seeming good-will or out of anger. The Greatest things done are made up of the smallest of things. A war isn't won by an army, it's won by individual, courageous soldiers that chose to be a part of something greater than themselves or their past. I know we are kinda getting onto a different subject, but how would any of the accomplishments that helped change the world happen, if everyone involved decided to just get bogged down in the sorrows of their life and never reach outside of that? So you see, Happiness isn't just what one feels but what one DOES and how one LIVES.  

      And outside of knowing Jesus Christ, this isn't possible. You can have the perfect life, or maybe not, and just try to be happy- but something will always be missing. That hole you feel in your very being? that can't be filled with the plastic, fragile, worldly happiness. It can only be filled with the happiness that comes with a new heart and soul that lives, breaths and longs to do everything to the glory of the one who changed it. This entire post is useless without the working of the Holy King, GOD. So, if you want the kind of happiness that never leaves you, even in the times when the world seems to shrink in on you and the darkness of the evil in this life caves in on top of you: pick up your Bible, drop to your knees and HE will save you. God will give you the Happiness you seek, when you seek HIM.  

"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." 

-John 16:33

"It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness."-Charles Spurgeon 

"If you’re going through hell, keep going."

-Winston Churchill 

"The three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for."

-Addison 

"Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open." 

 ~John Barrymore