Thankful For :: 741 - 750

While poking around on Jule's blog this week, I was struck by a passage that she shared in her weekly William Morris Project post. It's from a book called, Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach, which I've never read and I'm not personally recommending, but three points from this particular passage struck a chord with me.

There are [...] six threads of abundant living which, when woven together, produce a tapestry of contentment [...] First, there is gratitude. When we do a mental and spiritual inventory of all that we have, we realize that we are very rich indeed. Gratitude gives way to simplicity–the desire to clear out, pare down, and realize the essentials of what we need to live truly well. Simplicity brings with it order, both internally and externally. A sense of order in our life brings us harmony. Harmony provides us with the inner peace we need to appreciate the beauty that surrounds us each day, and beauty opens us to joy.

Okay, so first things first. For the last 26+ years, my "inner peace" has not come from any actions I have taken, it has come (and will always come) from Jesus Christ - the Giver of Peace. So ignore the circular, inner peace mumbo-jumbo for a moment and let's focus on the three "threads" that I noticed (in bold).

Gratitude
When I first began counting my blessings and listing my thankfulness items on the blog back in August of 2010, I did so because I was becoming discontent with what we had, by always looking and talking and hoping for things that we didn't have or couldn't afford. I was unhappy with our financial situation, I was grumpy because no one would hire me, and I woke up one day and realized that I needed a serious attitude adjustment.

Simplicity
Now here's where the book passage started to make me sit up and take notice. As I thought back over the last year and a half, I realized that once I began counting my blessings and making a conscious effort to give thanks, my desire to simplify started growing. I had never put the two together, but it makes sense to me. By acknowledging the many things (physical items, circumstances, general gratitude for the seasons or my husband) that God has blessed me with, I no longer felt a need to hold on to stuff or find my contentment in the items that were taking over our home. In fact, shopping lost much of its appeal (something that has greatly benefited our bank account and our ever decreasing mortgage).

Order
Once the simplifying was started, my desire to make order out of the chaos began to grow as well. Although I felt a pull to order throughout 2011, it wasn't until I started thinking about my goals for 2012 that I realized that I was really sick of the piles, the missing bills, the un-filed paperwork, and I wanted it to end. I've always thought of it in terms of becoming organized, but I believe that the idea of bringing order to the house is a bit more accurate. We serve a God who does things in an orderly way. He created the universe, not through blind chaos, but with order, as seen in Genesis 1:1-4 (NLT): "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was empty, a formless mass cloaked in darkness. And the Spirit of God was hovering over its surface. Then God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. And God saw that it was good. Then He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light 'day' and the darkness 'night'. Together these made up one day."

{And the point of all this would be...}

Counting your blessings can turn into bringing simplicity and order to your home and content to your heart. The End. 

This week I'm thankful for...

741. A God of Order

742. Seeing the top of our desks

743. Clean sinks

744. Heating pads to help handle my sciatica flare-ups

745. Lemongrass and Ginger tea

746. Getting an idea, writing a blog post, then finding similar posts from fellow bloggers = extra encouragement

747. Airplanes (Sorry, I just had to - it was #747 - get it? Aviation nerd alert...)

748. Developing good habits

749. My snowflake tote bag from L.L.Bean - full of books to read

750. Online sales, unexpected money, and a reminder of our wedding chapter from 11 years and 7 months ago

{Source}

What are YOU thankful for this week?