Thankful Thursday #1: The Gratitude Challenge Begins

source: here

I stumbled upon the Gratitude Challenge one day while getting sucked into a black hole browsing Pinterest.  You can find it here. Feel free to join me - whether you are a blogger, a paper & pen writer, parchment & quill, whatever! Get your gratitude on!

Prompt 1: Why start the Gratitude Challenge?

Life is messy and it's not always the fun kind of messy - you know, like baking and decorating sugar cookies kind of FunMessy. Nope, sometimes it's more like the "finding the leftovers you can't even recall making and now it's growing weird colors and smells" kind of messy. That's the kind you wish you could sneak back and let someone else deal with it instead.

All of this bloodshed, destruction, distress, anger, and ugliness in the world today crosses lines we never even dreamed we'd have to worry about. It makes your heavy heart ache and tears frequent when you face the barrage of bad news.

Yet even in this mess there's a lot left unsaid about how many beautiful, good, lovely, and delightful things are still out there for us to enjoy. It's the good stuff that's more powerful than the bad.

source: here

Me? It's rather use my time and energy reminding people of the beauty rather than fueling the sadness and anger. So here I go - the Gratitude Challenge.

Here's how it's supposed to go:
52 prompts.
1 each week.
1 whole year.

EEP!

Yes, once I blogged for a 365 day challenge, but my faithful readers (hi, family!) will remember my actual total was in the two hundred range. 288 to be exact. But there's a certain pressure that comes with deadlines like this. I'll commit to once a week ish, and 52ish prompts. Quite frankly, I will consider this challenge a success if I manage to do at least 10. I do miss having motivation to blog. I miss having the luxury of more free time to blog. And I miss taking the time to truly reflect on the awesome things going on and capturing snippets of the good in my life. I miss sharing these snippets with people that don't mind reading what I write.

So here we go.

See you next Thursday as I aim to tackle another prompt!

Possibility Plethora

Came home from a not-so-hot day at school -- those "off" days are just unavoidable -- with a burdened heart, stressed mind, and the same headache that's been off and on since Thursday. Not so happy camper, you might say.

An email made my heart skip a beat as it revealed that my credential file not only has the potential to go out now, but it is going out! Tomorrow! To 5 schools!

My head nearly to it's bursting point, I quickly gathered up a stack of letters and walked down the street to the mailbox. And then kept walking.

Praying.

Thinking.

De-crabbying.

And building excitement.

Joy.

Optimism.

Hope.

Some things aren't worth worrying about. We can't control 'em, so why worry about them? God can use everything, anyway. So instead of worrying, get excited. Don't look at what could go wrong. Look at what could go right. I'm sharing these words because that's the attitude shift I needed, and maybe somebody else does, too. I wasted too much time even just today worrying about things that really won't matter next week or next month or next year, and not enough getting really psyched about all that could matter and be in that time.

I got to tell my kiddos today about Jesus feeding 5000 with the lunch of one boy, a meager lunch of 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. That was after the disciples probably looked at him with the same look my little boy gave me about the snake hole: "You're absolutely crazy and unbelievable!" Jesus not only fed them, but he made leftovers to boot. Clearly things always work out. God always provides far beyond our imagination.

I highly doubt that any of these first 5 places will work out, but who knows? I'm really just saying that so I don't get my hopes up too high. They actually look like some fun areas and decent schools. One's an hour away from home. What I do know is that these are doors opening left and right, and it's just the beginning.

I don't know where I go from here, but I know who I go with: the friends, family, and God who love and support me all the way through. It's the beginning of the end of one adventure and the start of a brand new one, and it's truly awesome.

This is it.

~"Do not conform to the patter of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- his good, pleasing and perfect will." [-Romans 12:2]~