from the outside looking in.

Just about every morning I have an hour of “quiet time” where I pray, read, journal, and sometimes even just sit in silence. I’ve actually become quite dependent on that time alone with God. It sets my heart and mind in the right place before starting the day, and it’s during that time that I get the deepest revelations/realizations about God, myself, and life in general.

Today as I was journaling (I’ve posted before about how important I think journaling is), I made a list of all of the things I’m thankful for. This is something I do pretty often, and to be honest the list usually looks the same most of the time.

Today, though, it looked a bit different. I started writing things down that I didn’t even know I was thankful for…things that I either didn’t realize I had, and even things that one arguably wouldn’t/shouldn’t be thankful for.

I realized that the moments of my most sincere thankfulness and gratitude comes from looking at things from an outside perspective. Sometimes I even look at my life as my 16-year-old self. I think she’d be pretty excited if she knew what life in her late 20’s would look like.

It’s so easy to focus on the things we don’t have - “if only THIS happened I’d be so much happier,” or “if only THAT happened my life would somehow be complete.” But if you take a second to look at your life from the outside looking in, you might be surprised that you’re a lot further along - with a lot more to be grateful for - than you realized.

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When you look at your life from an outside perspective, what does it make you most grateful for?

Comments

  1. says

    Very true! I think I’ve gotten better about this as I get older. When I was 16, I was constantly telling myself “If I only had/did/bought this.” I’d be so much happier. But now I’m more content with where I am in the moment!

  2. says

    When I look at my life from an outside perspective, I am really really grateful for my marriage and my relationship with my husband. Sometimes I want to kill my husband, and then you look around and you see people breaking up and cheating and you’re just SO grateful for a relationship that is relatively drama-free.

  3. says

    yes, so good. and i SO wish i had an hour of quiet time each morning. CHERISH THAT, as i’m sure you do. i need to start building that into my life somewhere.

    • says

      Honestly, it’s one of those things I’ve just purposefully made the time for - it’s the one thing I’ll sacrifice the extra hour of sleep for!

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