For the Days When You Have to Find A Reason to Be Thankful

It’s November 1st and on top of being done with Halloween for the year, today starts many things. I’m excited to put up my Thanksgiving decor because, even though the stores usually skip it, it’s my favorite time of the year. If you’d ever had one of my mom’s sweet potato pies, you’d be right there with me!

Today also starts National Blog Posting Month and it’s a big deal in the blogging community. It encourages us to write every day and to share valuable content with you, our readers, on a consistent basis…which is something at which I can suck sometimes. My bad. But heads up, you’re about to be bombarded. You’re welcome 🙂

Today’s prompt is talking about mental health and what to do when you’re having a bad day. I find it slightly ironic that I didn’t get the topic until I was sitting at my doctor’s office and waited over an hour to see him for an appointment that lasted all of ten minutes.

 

I know that a lot of bloggers start the 30 Days of Thanks challenge today as well. I won’t lie, I scoffed at some of them and thought “Why would you have to remind yourself to write something down every day? I don’t get it…it shouldn’t be that hard to be grateful…” Personally, I’m thankful every single day and I don’t need to write it down to remember that.

So, let me tell you about this past Sunday when my perfect husband and I got into a fight.

Let’s call it a strong argument. We were both up late the night before and very tired. And if you didn’t know, me tired=pure evil. So we go to church. He had a meeting to go to and had someone to upset him during the meeting. We had Sunday School and someone was spewing a lot of hypocrisy and it was turning my stomach. In disgust, I got up and walked out and waited for class to be over. We had church service, someone got sick and had to be rushed to the hospital and someone upset my husband as he was trying to ensure that things were properly resolved. After church, we went to lunch with a friend. I asked hubby during lunch if he had any reaction/opinion in regard to my feelings. He said no. We had a very opinionated conversation with our friend about some of the situations that occur at church. We went back for another service and then attended a meeting afterward. The meeting was absolutely pointless and a waste of another hour of our day.

We get in the car to go home. And that’s when the fight started. We argued on the way home until I said eff it and stopped talking. I got out of the car, slammed the door and went into the house. I knew that I needed to take a nap because it wasn’t going to get any better until I’d had some rest. This was pretty much the point that my husband stopped talking to me too.

Once we’d slept it off and calmed down, we sat down to talk. The basis of our disagreement was a misunderstanding {on his part} that he thought I was picking a fight with him and an failure {on my part} to communicate clearly or to even ask how his day was.

[tweetthis]Marriage is no joke, it’s not for the faint of heart, it’s not for punks + all the other clichés you know of.[/tweetthis]

Here’s the truth: marriage is no joke, it’s not for the faint of heart, it’s not for punks + all the other clichés you know of. There are going to be days where you have to dig down deep to find a reason to actually like the person you promised + proclaimed to love.

How in the world do you save your sanity when it seems like everything around you is just a little too crazy?

When I saw today’s writing prompt, I reconsidered + thought those gratitude bloggers might not be that far off base… so, after lunch, I headed straight to my local Michaels to see if their planners were on sale. I actually ended up finding something much better:

This little book is an insert that is part of another type of planner. I actually have a few of the inserts, but the planner didn’t actually suit my needs/style. I couldn’t help but to be drawn to this one though and it was exactly what I needed. I opened it to the first page and saw this:

They really could have just thrown in John 10:10 which says “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” I wouldn’t have been mad at all.

See, I’d said on Saturday that I was going to scope about marriages + how wonderful they could be + how happy I was in mine. By Sunday afternoon, I was pissed off + didn’t want to talk about anybody’s happy marriage. I knew that it was the enemy coming in to mess with my joy + the ministry in my heart, so I went to talk to my husband to make things right between us. Because I am eternally thankful for him and have to show him that every. single. day.

Regardless of your relationship status, you’re going to have some days when you question your purpose + even your existence. There is always a purpose for your life + it’s up to you to seek it out and share it with others. There is always something for which to be thankful. This is what’s inside of the Inspiration planner:

If that doesn’t get you at least on the right path, please let me know what else you need and I’m on it! Single? Be thankful for the time to build your relationship with Christ before someone comes in to interrupt it all! Married? Why are you thankful for your spouse? It takes a true adult + real woman to tell the world that she’s perfect got some things to work on. Another thing to be thankful for? The ability to admit my weaknesses + the willingness to work on them.

I actually started writing in mine today. I’m not going to write every day; I’ve had enough therapy where I’ve learned better coping mechanisms for my bad days. But when I need it, I know where to go. I have a place {in addition to Scripture} to help me hear God’s voice when He tells me that it’s ok, we got this + you always have a reason to smile.

What do you do when you have a bad day? Netflix and wine down? Do you take a long walk? Feel free to let me know in the comments below…I’d love to hear what works for you!