The other night I was really feeling sorry for myself. I’ve been quite frustrated lately at something that hasn’t been happening the way I thought it should. Patience is not one of my virtues, and apparently it is something that I should be learning. It is so hard for me to accept the fact that Heavenly Father knows the plan for me, and it is probably a whole lot better than the plan I have for me.
Anyway, I was saying my prayers and was throwing quite a pity party for myself. Suddenly a hymn came very clearly into my mind:
When upon life's billows You are tempest tossed,
When you are discouraged Thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings Name them one by one,
And it will surprise you What the Lord hath done.
I was very humbled by that, and realized how ungrateful I was being. After that I started actually counting my blessings:
- My incredibly amazing husband
- My family
- My studio
- My university job
- Tyler’s job
- The opportunity to continue my education
- Our warm home
- The list goes on and on and on. . .
By the end of my prayer I realized how blessed my life is. I felt much better about the whole situation. I have to concentrate pretty hard on my blessings to distract myself from the one thing that’s missing, but I know I have a lot to be thankful for.
I usually don’t share something this personal, but maybe this will help someone else who is feeling like maybe their life isn’t going right. Start making a list, and I guarantee you won’t ever finish the list.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
I have a feeling that we may be being "patient" as best we can for the same thing. If it is... I agree that it's hard. And even if it isn't, thank you for this post. It's also fun that a lot of the blessings you mentioned I can "steal" straight across :) We should be friends. Hope things look up for you soon, and know I'm here if you ever want to talk.... it might be good for me too. (if I ever get up the courage)
Way to go Lisa. You are really a pretty smart girl. You really do have a lot of blessings.
So this is pretty much word-for-word what I wrote in my journal about 2 days ago. Ah... patience. Something I'm really trying to work on, especially when it comes to some specific things in my life that I wish would happen now, but the Lord hasn't seen fit to happen yet.
Read the talk "Patience" by Neal A. Maxwell. It is beautiful, and has really helped me lately. It can be found here:
http://speeches.byu.edu
Thanks for this post. You've touched me. We all have struggles and yet there's always blessings that come from them--it's just being positive that's hard for me!
I also have to say too that I admire you so much. :)
Your warm home? I wish I could say that. But at least I have a home! I even have 2!
I was having a pity party too last night in my prayers and tried to think of all positives - so hopefully you are feeling better today!
I use that same hymn for comfort when I need it. Only it is usually a different verse about money not buying our salvation.
Thanks for the positive thoughts, Lisa.
Post a Comment