Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep

Have you ever watched the Christmas movie, White Christmas? It's a beautiful story and one I watch every holiday season. I had never actually seen the movie until after Ben and I were together and, while spending Christmas one year with his mom, we watched it and I was immediately hooked on my "favorite Christmas movie" of all time (to be tied with Polar Express). One of the songs I love the most in White Christmas is when Bing Crosby sings "Count Your Blessings." The lyrics go like this: "When I'm worried and I can't sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep, and I fall asleep counting my blessings. When my bankroll is getting small, I think of when I had none at all and I fall asleep counting my blessings." I don't know how many times I have tried this technique. When all the stresses of life lay on my heart and head in the middle of the night, I try to count blessings. Do you know I can't get very far! It's not because I don't think my life is blessed, I do. I truly think I am blessed child of God. I have a family I love and who loves me, my husband has job security, I have healthy and happy children, we have people we can call "true" friends in our lives, among many more things. But it seems as I am laying silently on my back, staring up at the dark ceiling, nothing comes to me. Or the big, overall things to be grateful for...you know, the obvious ones are said and then I get to blessing #12 (still not asleep) and out of ideas.

I blogged a long while back about using an "attitude of gratitude." It the sermon topic one Sunday at church and I was so motived by the thought of literally being able to change my life if I would just change my outlook. If I would just look at everything from a grateful perspective. Every relationship would shift (for me). The way I viewed the world around me, would be sunnier because I took the time to notice the blessings in it...not just rush by it all and try to come up with something to be grateful for at the end of the day. The main point Reverend Hasty was driving home that particular Sunday was that your heart wasn't going to adopt the "attitude of gratitude" because you told it to. No, it was like every other part of your life. It was going to take work to make gratitude a natural habit. So, I took out one of my old journals I had collecting dust under the bed, ripped out all the past entries and started a "Gratitude Journal." I was going great the first day, still going strong on the second, oops, forgot to add anything on the third, was too busy to notice on the fourth, found one thing in the busyness of life on fifth and you see the pattern. It's a tough habit to form and it's even harder to train your brain to look for and find things to be grateful for; especially on those days when the kids are pushing you to the brink, you ran out of milk, the dog is whining again, the laundry pile is so high you are tripped on it it to get to the refrigerator for the umpteenth snack of the day...AHHHH! Life. In retrospect, I know exactly what to be grateful for...children when so people are unable to have any, money ti purchase milk and a car to drive to the store to get it, the ability to cloth our children and keep the clothes cleaned. I should be grateful for the laundry detergent that I have. Grateful for the electricity to clean the clothes for me so I don't have to spend all day collecting water and hand-washing play-stained clothes. But alas, in the midst of chaos we tend to see the next step and that is all we can focus on. We have such a hard time taking a second to give thanks for ANYTHING (unless it's the kids momentary silence) because all we can see are the tantrums, the messes, the lists of to-do's, the breakfasts, lunches and dinners that need to be made.

So, here is what I am doing. I would love to hear if you join with me on some or all of it. I am pulling out my Gratitude Journal. We are going to try again but this time, I have a new method to remind me to stop in my middle of the hustle and bustle and craziness of life to be grateful for things. I found my son's little smiley face stickers! They are magic secret. I remember my step-mom doing this when we were kids. She put a smiley face sticker in her car right in front of the odometer and everytime she looked at it, it reminded her to say a quick prayer of thanks. I am using some of these fun and colorful smiley stickers and placing them strategically around the house. Some of the most obvious of places where I will see them constantly, the refrigerator handle, the coffee maker, the bathroom mirror. Others I want in places I don't go very often. Everytime I see one of those stickers, it will remind me to stop for 5 seconds and offer up a praise of thanks for whatever is going on around me at the time.