This week’s lesson will bring you further into emotional freedom, as you learn to refute self-pity and to think correctly about failure and regret. Keep plodding. Each week, you are adding another tool to your toolbox, acquiring all the knowledge you need to overcome discouragement and worry. That’s our goal, for you to be a person with a happy, joyful heart.
Remember, sleep, air, warmth, water, and oxygen cannot be argued with. But for adults, emotional deprivation is caused by the mind. It is always some version of “I want more X (or less X) and I don’t have it and I don’t like it.” Just remember that for most situations (of course not all, such as abuse), it’s a standard you’ve created (see Lesson 3 on giving interpretations).
Be sure and read Lesson 6 in Happy School first as it is foundational thought for this week’s lesson.
Next Monday, October 19, is FALL BREAK and you will not get a lesson. On the Monday after that, October 26, you will get a combined Lesson 7 and Lesson 8. Just FYI.
Day 1
First You Have to First Recognize You Have Self-Pity
One afternoon fifteen years ago, I was getting acupuncture. I was explaining to my acupuncturist why I was emotionally down. I listed several items. “Joo-lee,” he said in his Chinese accent, “you have self-pit-tee.” Sometimes, sentences cut a slit in my skull and let truth in. This was one of those moments. Why, I had self-pity! I definitely recognized self-pity in others but I didn’t see it in myself.
Self-pity is what the Israelites had when they wandered in the wilderness. God had just miraculously delivered them from being slaves in Egypt (can you imagine seeing the Red Sea part?!), and now they’re fussing and murmuring about everything.
How does one know if she has self-pity? Here’s a good test: if you whine and grumble to yourself (listen to your Parade) about how hard you have it and how you don’t like it, then it is highly probable that you have self-pity. You must learn to recognize and hear the beast of self-pity when it Marches Across your Brain. So many women have it and don’t know it. Whenever you hear yourself complain and murmur about how difficult or unwanted your circumstances are, then beware, you might need to confront yourself about your self-pity.
In one of my groups, one of the young women—who was a true servant and a godly woman—was filled with self-pity. She had indeed experienced some hard things, but I don’t do anyone a service if I let them hold on to their self-pity. It tarnishes the soul and hurts our relationships with others, as others don’t find it attractive. (They may listen to you, tolerate your rantings, and even agree and offer sympathy, but I promise, it will eventually push even your most loyal friends away. See Day 4’s article for more on this.)
“I didn’t get what I needed as a child,” my student repeatedly mentioned to the group, blaming her current emotional anguish on her family-of-origin. Gently, I had to remind this young woman that yes, maybe her childhood was the source, but she’s an adult now, and she can learn to think correctly. She no longer has to have Mommy and Daddy’s approval. Mature adults don’t blame others, and don’t have self-pity. Rather, they take massive, prayerful, action on their goals and otherwise, quarantine their WMDs (What’s Missing and Disappointing).
The secret to knowing whether or not you have self-pity, as I’ve said, is to listen to your self-talk to see if you hear a lot of discontent and complaining. Having self-pity means you feel sorry for yourself in an area because you don’t have enough of something you desire. This week, the goal is to make major strides in recognizing our self-pity, then in accepting our current lot while prayerfully and powerfully working to change things. It does not help to kick the wall. Accept what is, then get to work in your prayer life as well as on your goals (see last week’s lesson).
Another name for self-pity is a victim mentality. A victim mentality says, “It’s not my fault. So-and-so is to blame.” Any kind of blame is a loud indication of self-pity. Self-pity is one of the greatest weaknesses of the human spirit and is an acid to the human soul. When you hear the Parade of self-pity Marching across your Brain, grab it, and put it solitary confinement. There is zero, and I mean zero, benefits to self-pity. Prayer, prayerful problem-solving, and taking massive action are king.
Day 2
People with the Exact Same Objective Situations Think Differently About Them
As the Genie taught in Lesson 3, individuals with the exact same objective situations or circumstances often give them completely different interpretations. One person feels victimized by fate and carries a sense of being injured (thus feeling sorry for herself). But another person—remember, one with the exact same circumstances—does not feel sorry for herself. The difference is that humans assign value to and interpret all situations and circumstances.
Let’s take five examples and see how people with the exact same objective circumstances respond differently.
For the first example, let me tell you about a woman my husband and I know. This woman’s neighbor’s dog charged her and scared her. As a result, she fell down, breaking her wrist. She will now have to permanently deal with a level of arthritis in her wrist. This is unwanted, I agree, but she rails about how this incident severely set her life back and nothing will ever be as good again. The injury happened over two years ago and she still blames her stagnant life on this unfair injury.
In contrast, we also know a man who was turning right in an intersection. He had the right of way but an 18-wheeler bulldozed right through the intersection, clearly on a red light, and hit our friend’s car. The man will never walk again. He and his wife were getting ready to retire and enjoy their grandchildren, but instead, they’re now looking at how to make their home handicapped-accessible. No one would want these circumstances. But what is remarkable is that these people are cheerful, accepting, and grateful to be alive.
For our second example, let’s talk about a woman named Suzanna. Suzanna was married once, but that didn’t work out. So after her divorce at age 29, she started looking again. Now, still single at 42, Suzanna is dealing with the fact that she will probably never give birth to her own children. Every time I talk to her, she is wildly upset over this situation. She asks, “Is it too late to freeze my eggs?” “Should I marry this man who has been divorced three times so that I might still have a chance at having children?” She is full of turmoil and discontent.
Then, there’s Gwendolyn. She too wanted to get married and have children. But it never worked out. She has built a beautiful life full of rich friendships, fulfilling work, and using her gifts to serve. When you meet her, you notice her easy laugh and contented heart. She told me once that “acceptance and courage” were her mottos in life. Acceptance of “what is” is such an important but difficult lesson to learn.
Thirdly, let’s discuss Courtney, who is in her 40s. Her husband lost his job, again. For some reason, every job he gets doesn’t seem to work out. Now she has gone back to work and is the primary breadwinner for the family. Her husband is a nice guy, but he clearly has disappointed Courtney as far as being the family’s primary provider. Courtney doesn’t want to divorce her husband, but she feels extremely resentful that she has to carry the load of the family’s finances. Courtney and her husband have been to various counselors, and nothing has significantly changed. Her resentment toward her husband is high and she is still considering a divorce.
In contrast to Courtney, there is Betsy. Betsy’s husband has also never figured out how to successfully move up the career ladder. After many years, he is still working in a deli, making sandwiches for the lunch crowd. Betsy’s husband works, he just works at minimally paying jobs. And he’s a nice guy—friendly and jovial. This couple too has tried a couple rounds of counseling, but nothing has changed. Betsy struggled for years with this scenario. But eventually, she said she had to make a choice, either accept her husband’s weakness set (and decide to primarily carry the family’s finances) or disrupt the family unit (they have 3 children) with a divorce.
She said both choices were unpleasant, but choice A was better in her mind. Betsy decided to accept the (highly unwanted!) situation. She went back to school, got an advanced degree, and now has a job she definitely enjoys. She has forgiven her husband for his (again, what I would call severe) weakness, but has decided not to let it ruin their family unit. In addition (and this is amazing), she said she has not only forgiven him, but can still enjoy her husband’s lightheartedness. Her lack of anger is apparent when you see them together. Now, she has a large degree of fulfillment from her job, and her children have grown up in a stable home. She is a delightful woman and has actually learned to be content.
For our fourth example, let’s discuss Sarah. Sarah inherited a portion of her family’s office supply business. Her two siblings wanted her out of the business, and pressured her to sell them her portion (at what I thought was a low price). You still cannot talk to Sarah for very long without her discussing how she was mistreated.
Then there’s Joanne, a counselor with a small but stable practice. One time she decided to change churches. Many of her clients—who were members at her old church—decided not to use her or recommend her anymore. During this time, there was even some untrue gossip spread about her. Joanne virtually had to start completely over and rebuild her practice. Initially, she was extremely disappointed, of course, but gathered herself and stepped out again. Her spirit is calm and content while she struggles to grow a new practice. “This is not preferred,” she has admitted, “but hard things happen to everyone. I can’t sit around and feel sorry for myself.” Actually, this is a noble mindset, as many people do sit around and feel sorry for themselves when faced with unpleasant obstacles.
The last example is Rebecca. She loved being a mom to her two boys, but now they are grown and have both moved away. Yes, she can visit them some, but it seems like they visit their wives’ families more frequently and just can’t seem to make it to see her very often. This is not the bustling family environment she always hoped to have, with a home devoted to family and grandchildren. This WMD (What’s Missing and Disappointing) occupies a lot of Rebecca’s thoughts, and in her words, “makes me feel sad and depressed.”
Then there’s Jerri. Jerri spent her 30s and 40s rearing children, too. Her children, like Rebecca’s, have all now moved away. Of course an initial sadness filled her as she left a life which was consumed with children to a very empty nest. However, instead of murmuring, Jerri chose to seek out several new interests to occupy her mind and time: a part-time job, a book club, yoga, and tutoring low income children. If you press her, she will tell you that she quarantines the sadness of her children being gone and intentionally replaces those thoughts with those about her new interests. She laughs and says, “I didn’t have a choice.” I said to her, “Oh, I know a lot of women who make other choices. For instance, you could stomp your feet, fuss, and have self-pity!” We both laughed as she would never want to be that kind of person.
The difference in every single one of these five situations is that one person had self-pity and the other person quarantined the disappointment and focused on (thought about) what they were grateful for, their goals, their calling, or their Genius Zone. In addition, in all of the second examples, each woman ultimately decided to choose acceptance of what is and then to move forward from there. We have to accept what we cannot change. Ranting and railing against it in our minds will not change it.
Over the years I have discovered that underneath self-pity there is the belief that one feels they are special and they are owed a certain kind of life. Their self-pity usually reveals they are annoyed at God (although many will resist admitting this).
Job had this problem. He was mad at God. And we understand his anger, of course. Job had enough faith and theology to know that God could fix things in the blink of an eye, if He wanted to. Job challenged God’s goodness and purpose. How God responds to Job in chapter 38 are some of my most favorite sections in the entire Bible:
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.” (v. 4)
“Who shut up the sea behind doors….when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt?’ ” (v. 8 and 11).
“Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place?” (v. 12)
God was declaring His right as Creator to have mysterious purposes. We are to trust Him that they are for our good. He has purposes for our suffering and we don’t always get to understand. But we can accept the unwanted circumstances. We can trust Him because He gave us historical evidence and proof that Jesus was God when he raised him from the dead. This historical situation, the resurrection, is why we can have courage and perseverance in facing our problems.
It is noble when you stand in hard circumstances and yet proclaim, “I will serve the Lord with gladness. I will trust in Him.” God wanted us to have assurance that in the end, He would rescue us. He performed the best miracle of all-time, the resurrection, so that we could have faith, rest, and trust. The historical resurrection gives us assurance that when he says in His Word He cares, He hears, and He is able, it’s true.
If you were dealing with a broken heart over something that you wanted in life but didn’t get, try spending an hour a day in prayer. Yes, an hour a day. You will be surprised how quickly you will heal when you are in the presence of the Lord. There are ashes, or there is the presence of the Lord. Focus on getting to bed early, because that is the secret to getting up early. (Did you know that the hours you sleep before midnight are more valuable than the post-midnight hours?) Before the dawn, have your Bible and journal (and coffee?) ready to go. You’re on a mission to get ahold of God. Start with the Psalms. If it’s the 3rd of the month, read Psalm 3 and then add 30. That’s Psalm 33. Read that and add 30. That’s Psalm 63. And so on, Ps. 93, Ps. 123. Then read the Proverb that matches the day of the month. Do this every day.
When you’re in the presence of the Lord, record anything in your journal that you think is a promise for you. God is a promise maker and a promise keeper.
In Happy School, I am teaching you the tools and secrets of thinking to overcome discouragement and worry, i.e., to help you achieve emotional freedom. But the Word is living, and in the Word, you will find peace that passes understanding so you can encounter spiritual freedom. (They are not the same things. People who are not Christians can learn how to think correctly and therefore, achieve emotional freedom. Only those who have received forgiveness for their sin and have submitted their life to the Lordship of Christ can have freedom over sin and freedom from the resulting guilt.)
List your top WMDs in your journal and beg God to give you His perspective on each of them. (More on this in Lesson 10, the Morning Happiness Routine.) Talk about life-changing! This is truly living above circumstances and walking by faith!
How you choose to view the hard circumstances in your life—as well as your past failure and regret—are these: one, murmur against God, or two, embrace acceptance, courage and perseverance, and walk by faith while standing on His promises.
Day 3
Playing Failure Movies and What Could-Have-Been Movies in Your Mind
Many women continually play Failure Movies in their mind. Playing Failure Movies is a complete waste of time and is extremely detrimental to your happiness and mental health. Dissect your failure for anything valuable to learn, then quarantine those negative memories. It’s time for those deadbeats to be handcuffed and walked to a locked vault where they must now live. You may toss the combination to the vault into the ocean.
Equally useless is to fantasize and play “What-Could-Have-Been Movies” in your mind. That is a royal waste of time and energy.
Women say to me all the time, “I wish I had eaten healthy 30 years ago.” “I wish I had learned how to understand men and worked on my marriage when I was younger.” “I wish I’d known more about how to rear children.” “I wish I had had a cure for my depression 20 years ago because now I have passed my bad thinking habits on to my children.” “I wish I hadn’t sold that stock.” “I wish I had left that toxic workplace and started my own business.” The regret and What-Could-Have-Been can quickly take you down into the abyss.
I know—I promise I know—how much smarter you are now than then. But there is no profit in ruminating over the wasted years, the wasted opportunities, and your dumb mistakes. (Except, of course, what you could learn from the situation, and you’ve already done that, right?)
Here are some steps to move on from failure:
First, tell the Lord, “God, You know how sorry I am for those idiot decisions. I have repented to the best of my ability. So now, because of Your great mercy, please forgive me and give me beauty for ashes. Show me how to take my mistakes and make something beautiful out of them.” After you pray, know that He has heard you.
Second, forgive yourself. God forgives you, so now, you must forgive yourself. I understand that because of your past mistakes, it’s possible you are now wading around in a shallow pool full of consequences that feel like baby sharks. You do, of course, have to deal with those. But no more beating yourself up. Face what is.
Third, draw a line in the sand. The past is over. What’s done is done and now, it’s time to move on. So instead of thinking about the failure (it’s in the locked vault, remember?), spend your time thinking about things (Rooms) like your Genius Zone (giving your gifts and interests away to help others), your calling, your goals, loving those in your inner circle, and being faithful to your priorities and responsibilities. If you catch the Parade of failure and regret Marching Across your Brain, pretend there’s a rubber band on your wrist and slap yourself. Say, “Get back in the vault!” Then, of course, use the magic of Moving into Another Room (think a different thought).
Failure and regret remind me of Thing 1 and Think 2 in Dr. Seuss’s book, The Cat in the Hat. These delinquents and troublemakers must be contained or they will cause a disaster.
If you read or listen to the biographies of great men and women, they often point to their failures as the springboard to their future success. They didn’t melt down into self-pity, but simply used the failure as feedback. Refuse to let your failures define you. Humans rise from abysmal failures all the time. Somewhere years ago, I read, “Don’t use failure as a tombstone but as a stepping stone.”
The Genie said to think of your brain as the landlord of a large apartment complex. You decide what tenants live there. Do you allow the tenants of self-pity, failure, and regret to overrun your property? Or, do you purposely attract desirable tenants to live there? You choose what thoughts you let hang around, and you choose which ones to evict.
The Apostle Paul must have had terrible regret from when he previously harmed new believers before he met the Lord on the road to Damascus. But he knew he couldn’t let his mind focus on the past. He wrote a powerful sentence that has helped me so often: “…but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead” (Phil. 3:13).
Even this morning on my walk with my husband, I told him that I can now see why God allowed all the hurt, pain, and mistakes of the past. I can now see how He is using “all things to work together for good.” Let God’s Word wash over you and renew your mind so you too can not only quarantine your past failures and regret, but be excited and hopeful because you know He is now using them for your good!
Day 4
This May Sound Harsh, But You Need to Know
Recently, a friend of mine asked me to meet with her younger sister because her sister is struggling with several extremely difficult situations. Both sisters are lovely and godly women. The older sister gave me a heads’ up on the younger sister’s problems. She has reared a difficult, autistic child (that still lives with her) and is currently living in remission from breast cancer. Then, without her permission, her husband invested in a get-rich-quick scheme and lost the couple’s savings.
Just hearing the younger sister’s story, I felt wild empathy and compassion for her. I said to myself for a moment, “Maybe it’s okay for this woman to have some self-pity since her situation is so very difficult.” (Of course, I quickly wised up and remembered that self-pity would not ultimately be helpful to her, though.)
Then before I hung up with the older sister, she confided, “I feel guilty saying this, but as much as I love my sister, and as much patience as I’ve tried to have with her for the last few years, it is getting difficult for me to continue to have patience with her as it seems all she does is complain. Of course, I do understand her life is hard, but I don’t want to continually spend hours a week listening to her problems.”
The point of this story, friend, is that as much as your family loves you, they will eventually get tired of hearing you constantly complain. Husbands get tired of it, siblings and friends get tired of it, and adult children get tired of it.
I understand that life can be hard. And sure, it’s fine to share your burdens with a few select people. But don’t be one of those women who, if they get you alone, trap you for 30 minutes while they tell you, in detail, how unfair and terrible their life is. If you’re struggling with self-pity, I want you to know that even those who love you most don’t like your steady fire hose of complaining. Eventually, it will actually make people want to avoid you.
One young girl told me that her mother complained to her constantly, starting when the girl was around 15. She loved her mother dearly and wanted to help her. Therefore she spent hours being her mother’s best friend, listening to her mother’s self-pity and rantings. But when the young girl got to be around 25, she said she didn’t want to spend several hours a week listening to her mother complain about life anymore. She felt guilty saying this, but she wished she could escape her mother.
Friend, I know some of you are dealing with very tumultuous and life-altering circumstances. And I offer you my deepest sympathy. But for your own sake, don’t wear out your close friends and family. Just mark it down, self-pity makes you unattractive to others. I’m telling you this because they won’t tell you. Maybe you’ve noticed they call a little less, or offer to get together a little less. Even the most loyal of your support group can only take so much murmuring.
Instead, maybe you can join or form a support group. And remember, there is always a Listening Ear in heaven.
I’m sorry. That sounded harsh. But you don’t want your family and friends to pull away. Therefore, deal with your self-pity. Deal with your disappointments. Prayerfully, take massive action to solve your problems. Quarantine the disappointment and Move into Another Room in Your Brain. It’s the only healthy choice.
The Proverbs 31 woman found a way to laugh at the days to come. You too must find a way to deal with your hard circumstances and self-pity, so you too can laugh at the days to come. Learning to have a happy heart and to live above your circumstances is what we are doing in Happy School.
The great Apostle Paul said while in prison, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances” (Phil. 4:11). You too, my friend, can learn how to be content.
Day 5
Focusing on Self-Pity (Your WMDs) or Being Grateful for Your Portion
Having had conversations with thousands of women over the last few decades, a few areas stick out as the ones in which American women have the most self-pity. The six areas that repeatedly surface are (1) disappointment with husband, (2) issues related to children, (3) dysfunctional family-of-origin, (4) inadequate finances, (5) lack of discretionary time, and (6) personal health issues. In Third World countries, women’s main problems are lack of clean water, lack of safety from violence (this is recently becoming more concerning in America), lack of healthy food to feed her family, and lack of good education available for her children.
We American women have unbelievable expectations: a marriage filled with romance, perfect children, parents who are still supportive and complimentary, much extra disposable income, abundant free time, and vibrant, robust health. Right? Isn’t that your standard? As you might know, the distance between your expectations and your actual life is your level of disappointment.
In many of my groups, I ask them to draw a pie diagram. Then, we label the pieces of pie Husband, Home, Healthy Food, Clean Water, Safety from Harm, Available Medical Care, Education, Church, Freedom, Conveniences (plumbing, electricity), Friends, Community, Work and Vocation, Hobbies, Finances, Savings, Personal Health, Family-of-Origin, Relationship with the Lord, and any other category they feel is important. Then, they are to shade each individual piece of the pie diagram according to what per cent they feel they have in that category.
After doing this, most women in my groups look at their heavily shaded pies and say, “Wow. I didn’t realize I was so rich and blessed.” You see, we let the WMDs, What’s Missing and Disappointing, occupy our head space. Instead, we need to harken to the Bible’s repeated exhortation to be grateful for all that we do have. “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto Him, and bless His name” (Ps.100:4).
One thing I have done for years is to record particular instances that give me high joy. When someone I love expresses affection or demonstrates high attention to me, or when the Lord answers a prayer, I record it. If you start looking for these examples, you will find an abundance of them. My book of remembrances is an amazing picker-upper. Reading the sweet things my children have done or said in the past is especially heart-warming to me. Early in my marriage, how I viewed my husband completely changed when I started recording all the benefits he brought to my life. And of course, these grateful “thoughts” produced affection (emotion) for him. Also, reading the list of miracles and answered prayers that God has performed reminds me He is still in the business of doing miracles.
Women with self-pity are rarely grateful. The amount of self-pity in one’s life is inversely proportional to one’s level of gratefulness.
It’s always summer in a grateful heart. And now you know that because of quarantining and Moving into Another Room, you can always choose to lock up your WMDs and instead, think about what you’re grateful for (or other wonderful Rooms to Move into).
We will further discuss the power of a Gratefulness Habit in Lesson 10, the Morning Happiness Routine.
Prayer
Dear Lord,
In Psalm 130:2, the Psalmist cries out, “Lord, hear my voice. Let Your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.” I have been oppressed by the Evil One, causing me to spend much of my life in discouragement and worry. But in Acts 10:38, Paul wrote that “Jesus came and healed all who were oppressed by the devil.” That’s me, Lord. I need healing in my inner man.
Lord, my Enemy doesn’t want me to know that I can be free of the oppression of discouragement and worry by taking my thoughts captive. I wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against…the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. In the name of Jesus, and with the shield of faith, I can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one (Eph. 6).
Just like the Psalmist in Psalm 142:1, “I cry aloud to the Lord, I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy.”
In Psalm 81:13-14, You say, “If my people would listen to Me, how quickly I would subdue their enemies.” I am telling You with all my heart that I am ready to listen and obey. Speak, Lord. Speak.
“In your faithfulness and righteousness, come to my relief” (Ps. 143:1b).
I believe. I believe in the resurrection and that You are the Son of God. Bless me, Your child.
In Jesus name,
Amen
Questions for Group Discussion
- Do the test for self-pity. Do you hear yourself whining and complaining about how difficult or unwanted your circumstances are? Have you considered that you may have a victim mentality? If so, decide to lock up every ounce of it in a vault. Share your thoughts with your group.
- After reading the five scenarios in Day 2 with two people who have the same objective circumstances, did you feel that any of the situations described you? If so, how?
- If you feel self-pity, is there a chance that you feel you are special and you are owed a certain kind of life? Are you angry with God about your circumstances?
- As you read the verses in Job 38, do you believe that as Creator, God has a right to have mysterious purposes? Can you say you truly trust God with your life?
- Do you understand that since God interjected the miracle of the resurrection into the pages of history, He proved that Jesus was indeed God and therefore we could trust what Jesus said?
- What was your reaction to spending an hour a day with God, praying and seeking Him in His Word? Are you willing to spend this time with Him so He can refute and replace your interpretations of your circumstances?
- Do you understand the difference between emotional freedom and spiritual freedom? People who are not Christians can learn how to think correctly and therefore, achieve emotional freedom. But only those who have received forgiveness for their sin and have submitted their life to the Lordship of Christ can have spiritual freedom, freedom from the power of sin.
- Do you play Failure Movies or What-Could-Have-Been Movies in your mind? Do you believe that there are opportunities in obstacles? Are you able to see failure as a stepping stone rather than a tombstone?
- In Day 4, I described how continual complaining to spouses, friends, siblings, and adult children can eventually lead them to want to somewhat distance themselves from you (even though they love you). Is it possible that this is you?
- When I listed the standards that American women expect in Day 5, (a marriage filled with romance, perfect children, parents who are still supportive and complimentary, much extra disposable income, abundant free time, and vibrant, robust health), did you agree? Do you understand that the distance between your expectations and your actual life is disappointment?
- Draw a pie diagram in your journal and label the various pieces of pie. Then shade them in according to what percent you think you have. What reaction do you get to this exercise?
- What kind of Gratefulness Practice do you have? Is it intentional? Do you have a place to record special gifts of affection and attention from those you care about? And answers to prayer?
- Women with self-pity are rarely grateful. Self-pity is inversely proportional to one’s gratefulness. What does this say to you? Do you understand how becoming an extremely grateful person can always make it summer in your heart?
One Last Thought
You can feel sorry for yourself about how hard and unfair life is. Or, you can choose to be one of the rare, magnificent, and noble women who takes charge of her thoughts. These lovely women are the mature in life, believing there’s opportunity in obstacles and remembering with God, all things are possible.
This is the new you. Take it. Own it. That negative, whining, critical, sad, upset old you can become a woman “who laughs at the days to come.”
Talk about beauty. Talk about influence. A happy heart not only blesses you, but blesses your family and everyone you come in contact with.
I know it can be tough to get out of a certain mindset, but start each day with the very Words of God, washing your mind with His power, His concern, and His mercy. Talk to Him about your desires, and then listen to see what He says. Quarantine your WMDs for now (unless you’re in one of the three times) because you have people to love and influence, as well as a race to run. How important it is to learn to not waste time and energy on self-pity, failure, and regret! The prayers of a righteous man availeth much.
Walk by faith, not by sight. He has heard your cry.
To your happy heart,
Julie Gordon
P.S. Remember, it’s FALL BREAK next week so you won’t receive a lesson. You will receive the combined Lesson 7 and 8 on Monday, October 26.
P.P.S.I love hearing how you’re applying the principles to your life. Please share your examples with me. You can reply to this email or write me at JulieNGordon2012@gmail.com.
JULIE N. GORDON 