One of my life verses is Phil 4:8. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition present your requests to God with Thanksgiving. And the peace of God that ascends understanding will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.”
The key here in this verse for me is Thanksgiving. I cannot count the gazillion times I have been down in spirit and began to Thank God for his blessings, only to find my heart condition change to peace. As a parent, we have also discovered this truth with our kids. Nothing is as obvious as children; they have a bad attitude, they write or talk through a thankful list, and *boom*….new kid.
If you don’t know us well, you may not know that we have “Bible time” each day. This is after breakfast and a family event. We all snuggle on the couch(es) and take turns reading a section in our bibles. Even Joy and Elijah get a turn to read and sound out words that they know. it’s a morning habit that we started years ago. We find it is much easier to do regularly away from home because there are less distractions. However, we continue to do it wherever we are living.
Since we’ve been in Florida, we have started to incorporate a thankful list into our morning Bible routine. It has been hilarious and a blast. Joy always asks to go first, and since she’s the smallest we comply. 🙂 we typically go around the room 3-5 times, writing down a total of 21-35 things we are thankful for each day! Regardless of the silliness of each line item, it changes our attitudes into an attitude of thankfulness and peace. We get to laugh together and get to know each other more during each of these sessions.
I encourage you to do this. 🙂 You’ll have a new appreciation for life!
