HOW DO WE REMAIN THANKFUL WHEN TIMES ARE TOUGH?
Somebody wronged you. Things are going haywire and it’s of no fault of your own. You’ve been trying to do the right things, live the right way, but situations STILL aren’t working out in your favor. How do you cope? How do you resist the urge to give up? How do you continue to do the right things even when you’re not seeing any immediate benefits from “living the right way”?
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” --Ephesians 2:8
One of the secrets to living a happier life is to adopt an attitude of gratitude, even when everything and everyone else in the world is telling you that you should be upset. When you’ve been wronged, or things don’t go your way, oftentimes people will tell you, “You didn’t deserve that.” or “I know what I’D do if someone ever did that to me.”
And you know what? There is some truth to those statements. Bad things happen to good people. Sometimes the cookie crumbles completely outside of our favor. It’s not fair. And it hurts.
But you know who is a much better person than you or me and who suffered more injustice than any person ever? Jesus. You probably know this. But it’s hard to remember when your heart is stinging after you’ve been burned. It’s HARD to be thankful in every situation.
You don’t have to handle every situation perfectly. You don’t have to immediately smile in the face of suffering. But somewhere you CAN start is to remember Jesus’ face when something like this happens to you. Even better, you can tell Him how hurt you are. You can ask Him, “why has this happened to me?” You can lean on Him for comfort when nothing anybody says or does seems to make you feel better.
Slowly but surely, Jesus’ love will begin to heal those wounds. Run to Him when you’ve been hurt. It all begins with the #babysteps
Xx