Kindly, Kayla

Hi Friends!

I hope each of you had an amazing Thanksgiving 🦃🍽️🤎!!! I hope you ate good food, had fun with family and friends, or just took some time for yourself. This week has been a great week filled with rest, comfort, and rejuvenation. Around this time of year, we obviously begin to think about being thankful and grateful. In this post, I want to share some of my thoughts surrounding gratitude in a more realistic way than we usually see.

This year, I had a thought enter my mind. What if you feel like you don’t have anything to be thankful for? Now, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely have a lot to be grateful for. But I know we have all had those moments where we have that thought and I wanted to talk about that today.

Last year, around this time, I had a nagging thought in the back of my mind that I didn’t really feel grateful. Because of TMJD, I couldn’t eat much, and even though there were so many other good things in my life, I had trouble seeing them because of the one bad thing I was going through.

I feel that’s common among humans. We tend to focus on the negative when there are SO many positive things happening in our lives. We do this in all areas of our lives. For example, you may have a couple of really good friends, but you focus on the ones who have hurt you. You dwell on and harp on negative comments received from others instead of all the positive things people say about you. Most of all, we listen more to the lies of the enemy than to the truth from our Heavenly Father. God says we are fearfully and wonderfully made, but we listen to the enemy who puts thoughts in our minds, saying we’re not beautiful. God says absolutely nothing can separate us from His love, but we listen to the enemy’s lies that tell us that God doesn’t love us anymore whenever we sin.

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.”

Psalm 139:14 NIV

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8:38-39 NIV

I just wanted to write this short post to encourage you (and me) to start focusing more on the good things that are happening in our lives. Yes, we may not be satisfied with how things are going right now. Maybe you are battling a health issue, you could be looking for a new job, and nothing is coming through, or maybe you’re having some hardship in your relationship. Firstly, I want to say it’s okay to be upset about these things. Take your concerns to God. Be honest about how you feel about it. He already knows how you feel anyway, so why not go to Him openly? We don’t have a distant, mean God who only wants to hear positive things. We have a gentle, loving Savior who just wants you to come to Him, trusting that He will handle it for you.

“Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Hebrews 4:16 NIV

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30 NIV

Yes, there are hard things, but there are also so many good things!! You’re alive! You have the vision to be able to read this post right now. God has provided for you a house to live in, a cozy, warm bed to sleep in!! You can eat food! You can smell warm pies, delicious cookies, and all the other foods you had on Thanksgiving Day. You can hear beautiful singing, worship music, and so much more. We live in a country where we don’t have to hide that we love Jesus and have total access to His Holy Word! There’s so, so much to be grateful for; we just have to train our minds to see the good.

One way that I am training my mind to focus more on the positive things is by starting a gratitude journal. I’m going to start writing down things that I am grateful for during the week so that I can have constant reminders of how God is always blessing me. His mercies are new every morning! I also saw a video by Rebecca Ly on YouTube, where she shared that she is starting an answered prayers journal so she can see just how faithful God is and how He does answer our prayers. Writing things down helps us actively remember by keeping what He has done at the forefront of our minds. I’m going to embed the video at the end of this because she explained it in such a beautiful way, and I highly recommend watching it.

I hope this post encourages you to have an attitude of gratitude. Not just on Thanksgiving, but all throughout the year, because we have a Father who just loves to bless us!! What an honor it is to be God’s daughter. :’)

“If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

Matthew 7:11 NIV

But this I call to mind,

and therefore I have hope:

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

23 they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,

“therefore I will hope in him.”

Lamentations 3:21-24 ESV