Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Attitude of Gratitude

One thing I've learned is that life is what we make of it. Our attitude determines how our day will go. A few years ago, I hated doing dishes. If I could avoid doing the dishes, I would. I'd grumble and complain my way through them. I still have days like that. It seems like everyone else in the world has a dishwasher and I still don't. My kids are piling dirty dishes beside me as I wash and I wonder, will it ever end?

Then, something changes. I remember a little poem that I found online a few years ago. It changed the way I will look at dirty dishes, forever. I memorized that little poem, by taping it to my kitchen window and reading it over and over, again, as I washed the dishes. My little index card is long gone, but the words have taken up residence in my heart and when I choose to remember them, I know I am blessed.

Thank God for dirty dishes;
They have a tale to tell.
While others are going hungry,
We're eating very well
With home and health, and happiness,
I shouldn't want to fuss;
For by this stack of evidence,
God's very good to us.

Author Unknown


It really is all in how you look at it. So, today, I am thankful for dirty dishes, because they mean that God is providing generously for our family. I am blessed to be able to wash dishes that held nourishing food for my children.

What task do you hate to do? Can you change the way you look at it? Find a new perspective, an attitude of gratitude.

Hidden in Christ,
Mandy

3 comments:

  1. I don't have a dishwasher either Mandy - and it took me forever to learn to just load my DIL's but unloading ugh - that is a chore - small cabinets and you have to search for places to put the kids cups. But I think I should be thankful that we have the money to buy them sippy cups since a lot of people don't

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  2. My mother has a sign over her kitchen sink that says "No man was ever shot while doing the dishes". Maybe you could hang one like that up over your sink to convince your husband to do them :)You are so right though...it's all about how you look at things.

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  3. Lol, Shelley! I love that! Maybe I'll make a new sign and Marty can commit it to memory ;)

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