How to become more grateful in life

During the weekend we were celebrating Thanksgiving here in Canada. I find it really easy to be grateful this time of year. I'm grateful to get to spend time with all our wonderful family members, I'm grateful to have a warm home as the weather starts to get colder outside and I'm grateful for all the tasty Thanksgiving food we were able to enjoy.


The question is how do you keep an attitude of gratitude on days when things aren't looking so positive? It's so easy to become one of those people who love to criticise and constantly complain about everything. In this sermon pastor Craig Groeschel teaches us how to develop a heart of gratitude.

Moments of stillness in a busy world

I love living in a large metropolitan city where there are always a lot of things happening. Fall is also the season when my husband and I are usually the busiest. It's fun to be busy with work, projects and people you care about. Humans are built to live active lives, but we also need time for rest. Finding that balance in life between an active lifestyle and time for rest and relaxation is what most people struggle with in our modern culture.

 

 

It's easy to get so caught up in life that we find ourselves always on the go, going straight from one activity to the other all day long and then crashing on the couch at the end of the day. I think once a woman hits 30 at the latest her life has gotten really busy. How do you balance kids, marriage, work, home and your own health in so few hours? We can't escape the need to prioritize some things higher than others. If we live for an average of 85 years we will have time for a lot of things in life, we don't necessarily have to do them all at the same time. There's a time for everything in life.

 

 

 

Everyone is different so each person has to find her own routine to stay balanced in life, that's why things can get tricky if we simply try to do what others do in life. What works for one family might not work at all for another family to stay balanced in life. I think the more we can learn to listen inwards and resist the urge to constantly compare our lives with other people, the better we will get at finding our own personal balance.

I personally try to plan time for relaxation and stillness into my everyday life. If I don't take the time to be in nature or at least outdoors every week I will get miserable. Taking a morning walk in my neighborhood on a sunny fall morning can do wonders to my well-being.

I love walking over to the pond nearby and stand there for 5-10 minutes watching the wildlife and enjoying the stillness, then I walk back home feeling refreshed from my time spent in nature.

On a cold, rainy or windy day it can be enough for me to take a 20 minute coffee break from whatever I'm doing and just enjoy the stillness indoors for a little while. If you have kids at home what you need might be something entirely different, maybe what you need is to get out of the house, meet up with a good friend and enjoy an hour with another grownup for a change.

I also try to create peaceful places within my home where I can enjoy moments of stillness during my week. Our family room is one of my favorite places within the home where I love to enjoy a homemade latte and 1-2 chapters in a book I love. I think weaving in moments of stillness and tranquility into our lifestyles is vitally important if we want to live healthy balanced lives.

The Drop Box

My favorite thing to watch on Netflix right now is the documentaries. The other day I watched a documentary called "The Drop Box". It's about the powerful story of a pastor in South Korea who set up a "drop box" for unwanted babies to save their lives. Hundreds of babies are abandoned each year in South Korea due to the mothers inability to afford caring for the babies or because of pressure to give them up since they were conceived outside of marriage. The documentary also explains how babies with disabilities are often abandoned by parents in South Korea because they can't afford to care for a baby with extra medical needs.


The Pastor and his wife lived quite normal lives with their daughter until their second child was born, a son with severe disabilities. The family had to sell their home to be able to afford the medical bills for their son and spent most of their time in the hospital. As they cared for their son with disabilities they noticed how other kids with disabilities often came to them in the hospital. Once they were able to bring their son home other parents started coming to them and asking them to take in their children with disabilities. The pastor and his wife then started adopting abandoned children with disabilities and children whose parents just couldn't afford to keep them.


Later the pastor and his wife were troubled by the problem of babies being abandoned in the streets of Seoul, South Korea so they set up a "drop box" for unwanted babies at their home to be able to save their lives. The pastor and his wife care for the babies until they can get picked up by police, get a medical check-up and eventually get put up for adoption.


It's powerful to watch this couple who have given their whole lives towards caring for unwanted children and children of parents who love their children but can't afford to care for them. Today the pastor and his wife have adopted a total of 15 children, many with different types of disabilities. They have also saved the lives of hundreds of babies who have been placed in the "drop box" at their home. It all started with the birth of their second child who has severe disabilities, this child turned their focus in life toward something entirely different than what they prioritized before his birth.

Hold It Down

It's an awesome feeling you get once you have finally figured out your purpose in life. You now live life with a whole new passion and energy, but what happens when you run into some really big obstacles on your journey? It's one thing to find the purpose for your life and it's another to actually finish what you've started. How do you manage to keep your faith when you run into disappointment after disappointment or failure after failure?


Pastor Nick Nilson from Lakewood Church teaches us how to "hold it down". Nick knows what we need to be able to stay strong in the midst of the struggles in life and how we can stay on track even when everyone around us is waiting for us to give up already. I like what Nick Nilson says closer to the end of the sermon: "Oftentimes just after our greatest setback in life we experience our greatest miracle in life."


If we would have decided to give up that moment when everything seemed so hopeless we would never had gotten to see the miracle. The reality is that life on earth will include some really hard struggles and pain, but when we find the hope and strength to "hold it down" even when things look bad we will get to see the miracle at the end.

The Workout

Biking along the waterfront of Lake Ontario, is there any workout more wonderful than that during the fall season? I absolutely love taking 45-60 minutes long bike rides along the lakefront a couple of times a week this time of year. My number one rule when it comes to exercise is: "It has to be fun!" I've tried numerous different sports and different types of fitness routines but if it isn't fun and enjoyable I won't last longer than max 4 weeks before I quit.

Let's just face it, working out takes a lot of time, and I'm not going to spend that much time on something that I don't enjoy doing. I like to do different types of workouts during different seasons of the year. Biking is my favorite workout this time of year and during the later part of fall I usually prefer going for a hike.

On a day when I can bike along the lakefront trail and stop at the pier and just enjoy the stillness for awhile, that's when working out becomes really fun! I get some exercise for my body and I get a moment to just stop and breathe in the fresh air and feel thankful for this day.

Lifeline @ Lakewood Church

The Toronto Islands

One fun thing to do in Toronto in the fall is to take the ferryboat out to the islands just outside of Toronto. The view of the Toronto skyline is beautiful from the islands. The lineup to the ferryboats tend to be very long in the summer but in the fall you can get out there more quickly and enjoy spending the day strolling in the parks on the islands. My husband and I had a very nice day on the islands last week, we enjoyed the parks, the sun and the warm weather. The only minus was that there were a lot of bees flying around.

Just when we were about to head back to the ferryboats I felt some pain in my stomach. I lift up my sweater and on my stomach sits a bee that had managed to crawl up under my sweater and sting me. Unbelievable!! I mutter something like: "I'm SO ready for winter to come now, I can't wait for the day when all these bees will DIE!" We take the ferryboat back to downtown and enjoy spending the rest of the day around skyscrapers and people with no insects in sight. I love spending time in nature and I love the city!