Miserable or Grateful

The disappointment has come - not because God desires to hurt you or make you miserable or to demoralize you or ruin your life or keep you from ever knowing happiness. He wants you to be perfect and complete in every aspect, lacking nothing. It's not the easy times that make you more like Jesus, but the hard times.  Kay Arthur

Are you grateful or miserable?  We have a choice in life to be grateful or miserable.  We are going through life minding our own business when tragedy strikes.  How we handle this occurrence in life can mean the difference between us becoming more like Christ or less like Him.  Our circumstances, whatever they are, can make us miserable or grateful but it is always a choice.

I’ve had my share of bad days, horrible months and even disappointing years.  The thing I have figured out is that how we respond to the bad times can make a huge difference in how we see life and ultimately how we treat others.  Have you noticed that when you are miserable you want others to be miserable with you?  You don’t want others to be enjoying their life when you are so miserable in yours.

I have met people who never have a kind word to say about or to anyone.  These are the ones who are wallowing in their misery.  I think there are even times when some people enjoy misery so much that it becomes a habit to be miserable. 

If you were to look back on your life you could probably see times where you made yourself more miserable by your actions immediately following the event.  One of the biggest turning points in my life came when I had cancer.  I wasn’t angry at God and I didn’t play the feeling sorry for myself card.  Why?  Because when I thought about my reaction to cancer the only thing I could think of at the time was that I was a sinner and had been sinning for a long time.  God must love me a lot to allow me to go through this and in many ways I felt it was less than I deserved. 

What it taught me was to appreciate and be grateful for each day.  When I look back on it now, I really had a lot to feel miserable about.  I had no hair, eyelashes or eyebrows.  I lost weight I couldn’t afford to lose and I had stacks of medical bills that I had no hope of paying.  One bill for a single chemo treatment was over $13,000.  That only included the actual chemo.  It didn’t include the nursing or doctor services or any of the medications associated with it. 

If we ever start to understand the enormity of what we have to be grateful for, we will never look at life the same way.  Choose to be grateful.  Your life will be forever changed.  

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I am forever grateful for the challenges You allow in my life.  They are molding and shaping me into a better person.  If I can choose to be grateful instead of miserable, the demeanor I present to the world will be a small reflection of You.  I praise and thank you for life’s challenges.   I am a much better person for having survived them.         

Scripture: My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.  But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.  For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸ he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.  James 1:2-8