When you’re going through hell…

I have a little challenge for you – one that may be a real struggle but it’s one that I think is super beneficial to you.

Gratitude. More specifically, gratitude through hell.

I know, it’s the holiday season so everyone and their mama is talking about gratitude and generosity, but I want to talk about it from a different angle.

Right now, I’m sure you could rattle off about 5 things you’re thankful for…like, a roof over your head, shoes on your feet, clean water, a car that works, and food in your pantry.

But how deep is your gratitude for those things?

Here’s what I mean: right now, yes, I’m grateful for a roof over my head, but 10 years ago when I was facing an eviction notice on my door, my gratitude was a little deeper for that roof over my head, because at any moment I was going to lose that roof. So I was grateful for every day that I still had it over my head.

But you know what? I struggled to be grateful for that roof. I kept focusing on the hell that I was going through and how everything kept “happening to me” and I spent hours “venting” to anyone that would listen to me about how bad off I was.

There’s a quote that my favorite life-coach Tiffany Peterson shares that her mom once told her,

“If you’re going through hell, don’t stop and build a house there.”

How true is that? Because that’s what I was doing when I was 21. I was building a house and putting up curtains in hell. I wasn’t doing anything about getting out of my situation.

Because there is always something that you can in fact control. No matter the situation, you can always control how you respond to it. And building a house in hell isn’t going to do you any good.

So if you’re going through hell right now here’s what I want you to do:

1. Write down 2-3 things that you are grateful for that directly come from this struggle/challenge.
2. Pray and ask God to bring awareness to the blessings in your life. Avoid “busy” and be “still” with God while you pray, even if you just sit in silence without actually saying a word to God.
3. Determine how it is that you can respond to the situation – what is in your control?

Now, maybe you’re going, “there’s nothing about this that I can control!”

I get that. I really do, but I beg to differ. Like I said, you can always control how you respond. When I was facing that eviction notice, I could have continued to sit on my couch and wait for the Sheriff to show up to evict me. Instead, I got up and created my first budget. Then I promptly cried about it because I was that bad off (running an almost $1,000 a month deficiency).

Once again, I could have just sat there and cried about my situation, but instead, I got up and made a plan. I tore through my apartment and threw everything that I could sell on my living room floor. I burned the midnight oil staying up categorizing, photographing, and getting things ready to sell on eBay and Craigslist.

Don’t get me wrong, I still had a long battle in front of me. Selling of a few hundred dollars worth of stuff wasn’t going to magically fix every problem I had, but it was a start. And so long as I kept going, I was going to pull through my hell…and I did and you can too.

It’s not going to be easy, but you know what they say, everything worthwhile isn’t easy. You’ve got this.

Now, what are you grateful for? Let me know below!