“It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up.” –Eckhart Tolle

Gratitude will be on the top of my list from now on. When you’re thankful for the little things, big things will come. Be grateful for all the blessing in your life, and I am about to tell you why.

• Your body diagnosed with a terminal disease.
• What do you have to be grateful for? Someone you love just passed away unexpectedly.
• What do you have to be thankful for?
• Everything in your life is fabulous. What do you have to be grateful for?

Tragedy strikes your life hard. Finding anything at that moment to be grateful for my appearance would be difficult. Hurt, anger, and emotion cloud our minds. We even curse God for what has happened. I get it, and it’s okay to be emotional, but we have to find our way back to peace.

We all get hit in the gut with tragedy, divorce, job loss; you could make a laundry list of things that steal our peace. The most challenging part of this is to find gratitude. If we make it through something horrible, we can make it through anything. NO, some things are not fair. Life in many situations is not fair. The good news is God sees these things; it does not go unnoticed.

Where folks lose God in these moments is “how could God let my son or daughter get cancer” or some other tragedy befalls your life. If God’s all-powerful and performs these fantastic miracles how could he allow drama in my life?

I wish I had a right answer for why some things happen, and some things don’t. Why there is injustice in the world. Free will answers a lot of questions, but certainly not all. We must accept reality, work to find peace and move on with our life. I’m sorry if you have had a tragedy to befall your life. Over some time, the pain will abate itself.

Some loss we don’t want to know “nothing from nothing” leave me alone you don’t know my pain. Families have endured tragedy through the ages. How many sons have we lost to war? How many children have we failed to cancer or disease? None of it is fair in any sense of the word.

What we must with everything that we have in us is find gratitude. I get it you want to scream when you hear this statement. Some things that you must think about to find an answer. Let’s say you lost someone to death. Do you honestly in your heart believe that person would want you to suffer? I’m in no way negating your pain. You do have to ask yourself though would my loved one want me in extreme pain?

Of course, they would not! If I passed away, I don’t want my family to suffer. Yes, we all need to mourn and time will make the days pass easier. Don’t blame God for a natural occurrence. We all have a time that we’re going to die. It’s never going to come at the right time. Celebrate the time you did have with them.

So, we’ve covered the extreme. It’s the hardest thing in the world to do but finding gratefulness amid anguish won’t be easy. Life will go on even if you don’t think it will. If you can see the smallest of things to be grateful. Offer that to God. I wish I had better words to ease someone’s pain.

Being grateful in good times and bad will always be returned with a beautiful blessing or blessings. Life can kick you right in the gut when you least expect it. Remaining grateful will keep your life moving forward positively.

The flip side of this coin is stopping to be grateful when life is roses. Life could not be better work is excellent, the family is good, and your life is moving quickly. Taking time to stop and let God know you’re grateful for the harvest in your life. More importantly, than can imagine is to stop and thank God.

Let God know that without him this beautiful life would not be possible. Stay humble in your praise.

For me during this season of my life. When I began to be grateful for my hardship with family, finance and personal experience. Finding the smallest thing to be thankful for was difficult. Then I’m reminded that my life is not as bad as others. You can lose your health in the blink of an eye, the same thing with your job. It can always be worse.

Taking time daily to thank God here are some ideas to get you started:

 

• You have a job, may not be the one you want but you have a paycheck!
• You have a car to get to work that runs!
• If you have kids and they’re healthy. Imagine parents that just found out their child diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, only have weeks to live.
• If you’re living, breathing, and healthy. Imagine the same scenario as a child above, but you.
• Beautiful day outside.
• The roof over your head.
• Food to eat at home. You realize how many folks will go hungry today?
• If you are a husband or wife, being grateful for your marriage.

If you try hard enough, you can find a lot more than just this short list. Plenty of things to be grateful if you search your heart. Keep in mind that if you can be thankful during the hardest times in your life. The blessings you will receive will indeed be life-changing. It’s been my experience that during one of the most challenging times in my life. Being grateful truly helps me find peace.

Coming from an incredibly dark place in my life where everything was in turmoil. By feeling happy again because I’m grateful for what I do have. Small things, big things it does not matter. What matters is that I feel so glad and the real kicker, most of my problems are still in full swing. With a calm mind, however, I am making real progress to cure my problems. Thank you, God!