Thankful

This week being Thanksgiving I have decided to list things that I am thankful for:

• My mom
• My family - I can't get enough of them. 
• Church
• Temples
• School
• Friends
• Running
• Free place to live
• Heat
• A job
• Shoes/Purses
• Reality TV
• Diet Coke
• Spray on Butter
• Skittles
• Dessert Gum
• Teachers
• Pajamas

I also gave a talk in church this past week on gratitude and to my surprise I did not get hives or throw up.  I tried not to talk like the micro machine commercial either, here it is:

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life it turns what we have into enough and more it turns denial into acceptance. Chaos into clarity, problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing and mistakes into important events.  Gratitude makes sense of our past….brings peace for today and creates vision for tomorrow.” 

Today I was asked to speak on gratitude, I am grateful for all the things such as my family, food on the table, my shoes, and so on but that is not what I want to focus on.

In my prayers I sometimes am so guilty of just listing off the things that I am grateful for and not putting genuine thought into what I am saying. 

So today I want to focus on how gratitude has helped me throughout my life build a stronger testimony in my heavenly father.   

Gratitude is our sweet acknowledgment of the Lord’s hand in our lives; it is an expression of our faith.

Mercies and blessings come in different forms—sometimes as hard things. Yet the Lord said, “Thou shalt thank the Lord thy God in all things.” 5 All things means just that: good things, difficult things—not just some things. He has commanded us to be grateful because He knows being grateful will make us happy. This is another evidence of His love.

The first thing I am grateful for that I want to talk about is adversity.  I have only recently been able to find gratitude for challenging times.  Growing up things were not always easy for me.  I came from parents who got divorced and a dad that was not always around for a large portion of my life.  But through it all I had my mother, who became the rock of our family.  When I was going through some of my challenges at times I thought,  “how in the heck can God give me another thing to deal with but he knew exactly what I could handle and that is why he gave me my mom and for the second part of my life he gave me an amazing step-father.  My mom was a hidden blessing that I am forever grateful for.  She was the one who held our family together and showed us kids that we could achieve anything we wanted. 

My mother taught me what it meant to believe so strongly in something that every fiber in your being could feel it.  I am forever grateful for her and that she taught me the importance of family.  When we encounter challenges and problems in our lives, it is often difficult for us to focus on our blessings, particularly when we’re in the midst of the trouble.

However, if we reach deep enough and look hard enough, we will be able to feel and recognize just how much we have been given. 

Adversity made me stronger and helped me appreciate family and the church so much more.

I am so grateful that I can pray to our heavenly father.

Prayer is something that also helped me with my testimony.  Even when my testimony is on the downward slope I have tried to always pray.  It just makes me feel better.  I am a talker and I love that Heavenly Father is always there to listen, he can’t turn me off. 

I love that we have the opportunity to pray whenever we want and he will listen to us.  The last couple of months I have made a conscious effort to not just list what I am thankful for but, truly talk to my heavenly father about why.  For me this has made my connection with my heavenly father more personal and I don’t take all my blessings for granted.   

I am so blessed in my life and when I return to live with my heavenly father I want to know that I let him know how I acknowledged his presence in my life.  The prophet Alma urged, “Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day.”  Prayer is something that I take for granted a lot of times, cause it is something that I have always just done, but without it I would not have a testimony and for that I am grateful.  Sincerely giving thanks not only helps us recognize our blessings but it opens the doors to heaven.

I had the opportunity to take out my endowments for the temple a couple of years ago.  I did not go on a mission or was not getting married so this was a big step for me. The night before I went through the temple my mom took me to dinner and essentially shared with me how proud she was of my convictions and about the day she first went to the temple. 

This act may have not been a big deal to her but is one of the moments I am most thankful for in my life.  She helped me confirm my decision in going to the temple and my testimony in my heavenly father and the power of the temple.  I am so grateful for temples and the opportunity we all have to go there with so many of them so close.  The temple has become a place of solace and peace for me and it is where I can feel that my family will be forever.  That feeling is one that I am so grateful for.   This is the place that I feel closest to my heavenly father.  

Most recently I was having a hard time and went to the temple on a Wednesday afternoon.  I had the opportunity to sit next to the cutest old lady, who just wanted to hold someone’s hand.  She needed the support.  So I sat through the session holding this ladies hand.  Little did she know is that I needed that same thing.  Heavenly Father works in mysterious ways and I am so grateful that he knows when we need to feel that we are not alone.

In my family I have always been known as the happy child.  I think that it is through my gratitude for life that I am this way.  Gratitude can make us happier people and change our countenance.  President Monson once said A grateful heart … comes through expressing gratitude to our Heavenly Father for His blessings and to those around us for all that they bring into our lives.  We can lift ourselves and others as well when we refuse to remain in the realm of negative thought and cultivate within our hearts an attitude of gratitude. If ingratitude be numbered among the serious sins, then gratitude takes its place among the noblest of virtues. Someone has said that “gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” I truly believe that God is shining through my eyes and a little piece of him is why I am known as the sunshine in my family. 

So how can we cultivate within our hearts an attitude of gratitude? President Joseph F. Smith, sixth President of the Church, provided an answer. Said he: “The grateful man sees so much in the world to be thankful for, and with him the good outweighs the evil. Love overpowers jealousy, and light drives darkness out of his life.” He continued: “Pride destroys our gratitude and sets up selfishness in its place. How much happier we are in the presence of a grateful and loving soul, and how careful we should be to cultivate, through the medium of a prayerful life, a thankful attitude toward God and man!” 

As John F. Kennedy once said “As we express our gratitude we must never forget the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”

I know that through gratitude we can build a strong base for returning to our heavenly father who will welcome us with open arms.