How to Choose An Attitude of Gratitude
Our lives are a collection of choices. We make choices every day, perhaps too many choices. Some are trivial and some are consequential. One of the most important choices we can make each day is to choose our attitude.
Far too often we allow life circumstances to dictate our attitudes. We’ve all met cantankerous people who, while focusing on their perhaps less than ideal circumstances, attempt to pass their misery on to others. Conversely, we know of others who maintain a positive outlook despite tremendously difficult circumstances. So, what accounts for the difference? Gratitude.
Every day we can choose to allow our circumstances to dictate our happiness, or we can choose to adjust our attitudes. If we focus on our circumstances, we will often be miserable and devoid of joy.
However, gratitude provides an entirely different vantage point. Gratitude changes your perspective by focusing on the blessings in life and looking outward toward the Giver of all good things. There is something about gratitude that opens one’s heart and mind to other positive elements of life as well. It seems counterintuitive, but when a person is truly grateful for what she does have–all the good things and experiences, and even the challenges–it shifts her focus off herself to God and others.
Choosing an attitude of gratitude
Scripture commands us to give thanks at all times and in all circumstances. I have witnessed this command lived out by a young woman named Naomy. In her first month of college, this kind, intelligent, and beautiful young woman was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer. The prognosis was not good. Everyone around her was devastated. But not Naomy. She chose every day to fight this battle with grace, humor, and gratitude.
The treatment was aggressive and painful. Her beautiful, golden locks gave way to baldness. Her hopes of having a child evaporated with each treatment cycle. And, instead of enjoying the typical freshman year experiences and her full-ride scholarship at a prestigious university, she spent much of that year in the hospital due to complications from chemotherapy treatments.
Even though her odds of survival were slim, she would not be downcast. She chose her attitude, and it lifted the atmosphere wherever she went. If she could be joy-filled and full of gratitude for every day, then certainly so could everyone else.
Naomy beat cancer, despite steep odds. And every few years she has had to beat it all over again, in her bones, in her kidneys, and attached to her liver. She has continued to beat it, and her attitude has not wavered. She is now married and, despite the constant threat of losing her, her amazing husband chooses to love her. Rather than focusing on the fear of losing her, he chooses an attitude of gratitude for each day they have together.
Naomy has taught a lot of people about the power of gratitude. Perhaps that is her purpose.
On the road of life, each must embrace her own journey. Rather than compete and compare, we should cheer one another on. Rather than allowing circumstances to make our attitude sour, we should use our attitude to spread genuine joy to those around us.
Let us, like Naomy, be women who lift our hands and hearts to God with gratitude for who He is and for what He has done–including the circumstances we don’t yet understand. And let us set a tone of gratitude in our homes, our neighborhoods, our schools, and our workplaces.
On your good days, give thanks with a grateful heart. On your difficult days, choose to trade your baditude for gratitude. Then watch how more than just your outlook changes when you choose to be grateful . . . on purpose.
Meet Tracy Hatch
After 15 years in public sector c-suite positions, Tracy Hatch is now living her dream as executive director of a multisite church and the founder of OneTen Ministries and EnoughLife.com. Tracy is a writer, speaker, and executive who is passionate about Jesus and helping others come to know, love, and follow Him as both Savior and Lord. Tracy and her husband have two beautiful fur-babies and live in the suburbs of Minnesota’s Twin Cities.
Where to find her . . .
- One: Ten Ministries
- One: Ten Ministries (Facebook and Instagram)
- This Enough Life
- This Enough Life (Facebook and Instagram)
Begin Within is a series to inspire a year-round lifestyle of gratitude that will impact not only your own life, but the lives of your neighbors as well. Gratitude is a theme we talk about often around here because it ties so closely into other missional living rhythms. Practicing gratitude reminds to keep our hearts soft and expectant and our eyes open. Therefore, the more we embrace gratitude, the easier it becomes to truly see our neighbors and where we can join what God is already doing in our neighborhoods.
If you would like to contribute to Begin Within, you can find the submission guidelines here.
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If you would like to cultivate rhythms in addition to gratitude that will empower you live on mission in your neighborhood, check out Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. This small book will help you make a big impact in your neighborhood as you learn to let missional living flow from the inside out. Get the 30-day missional living challenge free when you purchase the book.
