Attitude of Gratitude Challenge: Day 3 — Writing My Way to a More Thankful Heart
Jul 27, 2017 · 2 min read

Another day of mixed emotions and fighting some negative thoughts. Reflecting on the good that happened in my day is a beneficial way for me to end it.
Things I am grateful for:
- Lessons learned. Several sources helped me to see clearly something I needed to understand better about protecting myself in relationships with other people. A friend shared some of his insight on the matter, a situation arose that helped me to clearly see how to best move forward,and an article showed up in my Facebook news feed which was helpful. The article was describing how women are often expected to be emotionally available to so many people in various ways and how draining this can be. I agree and have struggled with this at times. Other people’s expectations can be draining, exhausting, and harmful. I’m grateful to be learning how to handle these things better and hope I can teach my children to do the same.
- The gift of prayer. Years ago when I had a much smaller family I was able to spend a lot of time in formal prayer and I was able to sit and practice the Jesus prayer. That time is no longer available to me like it was. Formal prayers are shorter and not as often as they were years ago when I would pray most of the hours, vespers and compline on most days. But the gift of prayer is still with me. I still know how to pray during my busy days. It’s not in the way I would prefer but it’s obviously in the way God does. I’m still able to draw from the well that was dug all those years ago and I’m so grateful to be able to do that.
- My new chalkboard for school. It’s the little things, right? Manny bought me this cute little chalkboard and pretty chalk pencils so I can write down a Daily Mot Juste for my kids to learn. I love it!

