MINE!

A lot of people (myself included) walk around with this sense of entitlement rather than gratitude. I deserve nice clothes, a nice car, to be treated with respect. In other words I can sometimes act like a toddler who holds another child’s toy to his chest and screams ‘mine!’ I don’t believe that God intends us to act like this.

To combat this I have been keeping a gratitude list. The very first day I started my gratitude journal I spent some time with my friend and her son. A few minutes after they left my house my friend called to say her son was very upset because he hadn’t been able to give me a goodbye hug and kiss. So he called out, “Bye Misty I love you!” After responding in kind and hanging up the phone I burst into tears.

I had just finished a weekend where God had shown me some of the ways I had been acting that were not so nice. I felt horrible about it. I felt like God was using my friend’s son to illustrate the love of Jesus. I accepted it but I didn’t feel entitled to it. My tears were tears of gratitude.

Since then I have still been keeping my gratitude journal. I have had times where I forgot myself and got wound up in my sense of entitlement (like when I thought the hotel I was staying at should have compensated me somehow for the broken lock on my hotel door that made it so I had to change rooms.) I have been doing better though. I don’t have something terribly unusual to be grateful everyday but I have found that the habit of writing down what I am grateful for is changing my attitude over time.