thankfulness

I apologize for my delay in posting part 3 - to be honest time really got away from me and I completely forgot.

Life picked up. Things started piling on, responsibility after responsibility. Assignment on top of assignment, task after task, test on top of test.... life was moving quickly, fast.

This evening I had the chance to go to a Brookside Women's thing where my sweet friend Amy Seiffert was sharing about this verse, and it reminded me that I needed to give my thoughts on part 3, thankfulness. But to be honest, my heart towards this topic right now are some what raw and vulnerable. I am thankful for many things in my life, and I understand the importance of being thankful always in all circumstances, however the posture of my heart right now is not thankful. Instead it's just kind of blah.... I'm finding myself having a hard time being thankful in all things.

I am VERY THANKFUL for the journey the Lord has me on right now with Ryan (we're now engaged! :)) However, I am not at all thankful for being in Grad School - not at all!

Tonight Amy encouraged us to read the book A Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, because she believes that it will help us in our perspective and heart posture towards being thankful. Apparently the author of this book decided to write down a goal of finding 1,000 things that she is thankful for that God has blessed her with in her life. Amy encouraged us to not only read the book, but to also consider what it would like for us to being a list of 1,000 things - and to start being more aware of the small blessings the Lord  has given us in life.

So tonight, in the midst of my ugly heart posture towards Grad School, I am setting a goal for me to find things that I am thankful for in my journey towards Graduation. I want to specifically focus on how I am thankful towards being a grad student, and not how much I hate it right now. So between now and May 3rd (graduation) I am creating a goal for myself to find 177 things that I am thankful for about being in Grad School, because there are exactly 177 days left of my graduate career.

Here's to desiring a thankful heart, cheers. :)