Practicing Gratitude

Something I always like to say is, “I’m just happy to be here!” I say that on days when I fully mean it, and I say it on days when it is more difficult. I have learned to be content in this season of life. I have been in the midst of more rejection and loneliness and sorrow as a 21-year-old college student than I would like to admit or recognize myself. I have lost many people in my life, some have even rose to Heaven. I have been lied to and cheated. I have felt empty and broken and shallow. I have physically fallen on my bedroom floor, crying out to God to make me feel something. I have camped out in the valleys and made it my home for far too long at one point in time.

But I have seen beauty beyond the heartache.

I have felt immense freedom and joy in my Savior, Jesus Christ. I have laughed and cried happy tears more times than I could count. I have embraced strangers and friends, as if they were a part of my family. I have thrived out of my comfort zone and had a smile on my face the whole time. I have had the ability to see just how much God has taught me through the rollercoaster of emotions that have always been present in my life. Every high and every low and every space in between, I have learned one thing that is more important than anything else.

Gratitude.

Even after sorrow, joy, heartache, laughter, pain and smiles, I have thanked God for every second. I have felt my cup run over from gratitude in every feeling I have ever felt. You see, we cannot run through this life without feeling a little bit of everything. All of the feelings, good and bad, are necessary and appreciated in the end. We grow from everything, if we choose. God brings us to situations that grow us as believers. He aches for us to understand that He is a God of peace. No worry or anxiety could ever take control of God’s immense love for us. His desire is to walk with us through life, showing us that He has full control over our next step. Because of that, we have the ability to walk through life with faith in Him that He is for us, not against us. We can rejoice with gratitude, thanking Him for His promise to us that life will be wonderful in and through Him. That does not translate to “life will be easy,” or “you will never have to struggle with anything.” It means that God is God over everything in our lives, so we can hold fast to our Savior and King, knowing that in the end, He will bring us to where we need to be.

Praise God for freedom and peace.