thoughtful thursday

After reading two talks last week that outlined for me why it is so important to not only hear but do what the prophet says, I figured it would be a good week to read a talk from the prophet. Seemed like a no brainer for me.

Connecting the dots; it's what I do.

I had already read his opening remarks (where he talked about all of us preparing to serve missions-which I heard but had "missed" that little detail until I read it) so I decided to read The Divine Gift of Gratitude.

There were so many good points made in this talk that just made sense to me. I love it when I feel like I'm feeding my spirit-and with this talk it was comparable to my physical body's relationship with a party sized bag of M&M's-I was feasting. But in contrast to the M&M junk, this is top of the line nourishing cuisine I'm talking about here.

Here's a couple of things that stood out to me:

When asked by the Apostles how they would feed 4k+ people with seven loaves and a few fishes, the Savior gave thanks (I'm guessing in prayer), gave it to the disciples who then served it to the multitude. Pres. Monson points out, "Notice that the Savior gave thanks for what they had-and a miracle followed: 'And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets full.'"

Confession time: There are days that I get one teeny tiny little negative thought in my head and that puppy blossoms and takes over until my day is utterly shot, I am totally defeated, and 99.9% of the time ends in tears. It's really not a good thing and I see that. I know that. Sometimes it all seems to spiral down so quickly I don't even realize what's going on until I am able to step back and pinpoint what my trigger was. I have really been giving a lot of thought as to how I can control my thoughts and be more conscious of what I am saying to myself. There have been many prayers from me on this topic and I received an answer today as I was getting this post ready.

"We can lift ourselves and others as well when we refuse to remain in the realm of negative thought and cultivate within our hearts an attitude of gratitude."

Awesome! How do I cultivate an attitude of gratitude?

He points out that a prayerful life and "expressing gratitude to our Heavenly Father for his blessings and to those around us for all that they bring into our lives" will help gain that attitude.

He then quoted William Arthur Ward who said, "feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it."

Whoa.

I personally am feeling grateful for this talk and for countless other blessings in my life. I also know that there are a lot of wrapped gifts sitting on my counter. It's time I gather them up and send them to their owners. ;)

How 'bout you?