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Thankfulness

Gratitude Can Change Everything

Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.

Gratitude is the heart of Thanksgiving.  Gratitude can change everything…. Think about it.  Gratitude transforms the way you interact with your  relationships.  It fills the empty glass of your emotions.   Gratitude truly is able to say “God has worked all things together for my Good!”

Here are some scripture about Gratitude and Thankfulness:

  • Ephesians 5:20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
  • 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
  • Psalm 100:4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!
  • Philippians 4:6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
  • Psalm 116:17 I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the LORD.
  • Psalm 95:2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
  • 1 Corinthians 1:4 I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ.

For the month of Thanksgiving I want to give you some thoughts on thankfulness and gratitude.  Over this holiday season  as you interact with your family and friends start a discussion about what you are thankful for.  My hope and prayer is that it will create thoughts and actions of gratitude in your life.

Here  are some of the benefits of a Grateful Heart:

  1. Reduces Stress – The struggle with stress is attitude and outlook.  Gratitude changes the way you view problems.  Your will recover more quickly from adversity and suffering with a grateful heart.
  2. Improves Health – A regular focus on gratitude  can create a significant drop in blood pressure. Patients who cultivate a more positive, thankful attitude after having a heart attack report fewer second heart episodes for up to eight years compared with grumpier patients.
  3. Improves Relationships – Their is a lot of research that describe how being positive and thankful can transform any relationship.  A grateful heart lives in the joy of the present and magnifies the positive emotions that build connection.
  4. Reduces Negative Emotions – Reducing the focus on negative thoughts is a direct result of gratitude.  It will also greatly improve sleep patterns.  Gratefulness can even reduce the frequency and length of episodes of depression.
  5. More Resilient with a High Sense of Self-worth – Gratitude will help you adjust and change with the stress and conflicts that each of us experience.  Several studies showed that people who have experienced trauma developed a more positive outlook after a daily meditation on gratitude. They also felt more motivated and had higher levels of self-esteem.  A grateful heart recognizes others and how they see the value in you.  This can transform the way you see yourself.

A Fresh Start Every Day

autumn moments

Every Day an awareness of God’s grace and mercy brings peace and confidence that “today I have a fresh start”.  God’s mercies are new everyday.  Every day start with the awareness of God’s presence, love, mercy and grace.  No matter what yesterday brought, today is new.

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Learn To Do 3 Things Well

Changing Your Focus

Your Life doesn't get better by chance, it gets better by change
Everyone longs to be accepted for who they are.  They want to be loved exactly as they are, not “I will love you if…. or I will love you when.”  If you are constantly asking your partner to change (or if they are always asking you to change) they will feel unloved and criticized.  Resentment begins to build and creates distance.
Your partner can change, but it has to come from their desire, not from you asking or pushing for it.  The only changes people make are driven by what they want.  People change because they want to enjoy something more or because they want to stop the pain of something.  Your goal is to see that you can control yourself and your boundaries not them.

The only thing that you can change is yourself – You cannot change your partner

 Learn to do 3 things well.
  1. Love the other just the way they are, not “I will love you if…. or I will love you when.”
  2. Develop the personal value that you want to grow change and be the best version of yourself.  Change because it is your personal value.  Change can’t be forced by your partner – it has to be your priority.  You will either intentionally change and grow, or the pain of staying the same will create consequences.
  3. You have to understand that happiness is your own responsibility.  You must own happiness yourself.  Your partner can’t be the source of your happiness.  Your happiness and joy comes from yourself and God….not your spouse.
Put your effort into changing you.  Don’t ignore your spouse or leave them to become happy.  Find happiness and joy where you are at.  You will be amazed as you began to love yourself, your relationships with everyone will change.

Change Yourself

Make you the focus

The only thing that you can change is yourself.  Don’t spend minutes, hours or days on the arguments in your head.  You will change the world around you by changing yourself.

The words ‘closeness’ and ‘intimacy’ are often used interchangeably, but they are quite different. Closeness is about comfort. It’s low-risk, low anxiety, predictable, familiar. Closeness is necessary in all relationships, however, closeness without intimacy is simply a relationship that has an unspoken contract to just die together. Intimacy is about risk-taking, newness, unpredictability, spontaneity, and high anxiety. Intimacy means you have a relationship with your partner; closeness means you have a relationship with your thoughts of your partner. All intimacy and no closeness is impossible to sustain, but there needs to be a mix of the two.

Tom Murray, Ph.D., marriage and family therapist
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100 Men

Providing an Intervention

100 MEN

Please Make a Tax Deductible Donation 

I wanted to ask for your help with two things:
  1. Prayer – Please pray for the Transformation Center and the lives that God impacts through us.
  2. Give – We are asking for 100 or more men step forward and give to help us change men and the lives that they interact with.  We are asking for a gift of $150, but any gift and any amount will help.
The idea to call this campaign “100 Men” comes from research about boys.  The research is titled For every 100 girls ….  This research asks the question for every 100 girls that, graduate from High School or college, commit suicide, or are in prison, how many boys do the same thing.  The comparison of educational and life events is a fascinating and scary picture. Here are a couple of the statistics.
  • For every 100 girls who repeat kindergarten 194 boys repeat kindergarten.
  • For every 100 girls suspended from public elementary and secondary schools, 215 boys are suspended.
  • For every 100 girls diagnosed with a learning disability 276 boys are diagnosed with a learning disability.
  • For every 100 females ages 15 to 19 that commit suicide 549 males in the same range kill themselves.
  • For every 100 women ages 18 to 21 in correctional facilities there are 1430 men behind bars.

I’m asking for help for three reasons. First, I want to make you aware of a very serious threat to family relationships in our community: domestic violence. Second, I want to make you aware that there is hope of restoring these family relationships. Third, I want to tell you what you can do to help pave the way for restoration.

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10 Ways to Love

Love Must Have An Object Or A Focus

10 Ways to Love

Love must have an object or a focus. In the Bible, love is described as personal and selfless always desiring the best for others. The ultimate expression of love is God’s love in sending his Son to die on the cross to save sinners – Romans 5:8; John 3:16; 1 John 4:10. Christians should be known by the fact that they love God and others – John 13:34-35. Love is best seen in actions and should be identified with what we do—in our compassion and commitment to those around us – 1 John 4:19. How we love others with our attitudes and behavior should reflect God’s love. Jesus said that only two commands are needed to govern our lives: love of God and love of neighbor – Matthew 22:36-40. “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” – 1 John 4:8

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Grace

Learn To Extend Grace

Learn to Extend Grace

Grace is what all of us long to experience in our relationships, the problem is we usually have a hard time giving grace to each other.  A definition of Grace is giving or receiving unmerited favor.  Giving someone something that they do not deserve.  We see grace in our relationship with Christ when He loves us, forgives us and is always with us when we don’t deserve it.  Is it possible for a couple to relate to each other this way?  I think the goal of every couple is to give grace to each other.

The ability to extend grace is one of the qualities that strong thriving couples posses. Creating an attitude of grace will help you to accept and love yourself and your partner.  Every partner despite their best intentions, are fallible and imperfect. It’s easy to show grace to people who treat you well and do what you want.  It is much harder to show grace to those who offend you or with whom you disagree. Grace creates an attitude of acceptance, patience and love that allows us to look beyond struggles and conflict and respond with kind words or a hug instead of silence or scorn. So rather than reacting with statements to your partner like, ‘How could you be so stupid?’ or ‘We wouldn’t be having this problem if only you wouldn’t have done that,’ you can learn that the best option is to extend grace instead.

True grace is empowered buy the love of Christ.  If you struggle to give grace to yourself or others spend time pondering the love of Christ.  He fully and completely loves you. God will grow your capacity to give and receive grace as you walk with Him.

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8 ESV

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV

Grace means there is nothing I can do to make God love me more, and nothing I can do to make God love me less. Philip Yancey

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Repair is What Matters

Create Understanding

Repair is What Matters

It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited – Lewis B. Smedes

Every couple argues.  Research has even said that 70% to 80% of couple don’t solve their arguments.  The goal is to create understanding. When a couple can create understanding it produces safety and vulnerability.  Work at connection and communication will be much easier.

It is inevitable that couples will have disagreements and inadvertently cause each other pain. Every couples has to learn that it is not the conflict that matters it is how they repair. Empathy and compassion with a desire to understand can help a couple repair or maintain connection.  Repairing your connection can potentially strengthen the relationship. The effort and process of working with your partner to repair the relationship will help build connection and confidence that will strengthen the relationship over time.

Read 6 Arguments Every Marriage Has to get more tools

We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all. Eleanor Roosevelt

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Kissing

The Happiness of Life is Made From the Small Moments Together

The happiness of life is made up of

Do you need a good reason to convince your partner to kiss more often? Research has given you a good argument.  Kissing not only better for your relationship — it’s also better for your heart. An Arizona State University study found that couples who were told to kiss more often reduced both their stress and cholesterol — and increased their happiness. Take the time to pucker up and feel better.

The thing that I think is the most important is taking moments to express your appreciation to your partner. A thank you or a quick kiss can go a long way toward affirming your relationship and commitment to each other. That’s not hard to do even when you’re juggling insane careers and three kids. – Michael Ian Black

Here is the reference for those nerds want to read the study

Floyd, K., Boren, J. P., Hannawa, A. F., Hesse, C., McEwan, B., & Veksler, A. E. (2009). Kissing in marital and cohabiting relationships: Effects on blood lipids, stress, and relationship satisfaction. Western Journal of Communication, 73(2), 113-133. doi:10.1080/10570310902856071