Today is Five Minute Friday. I’m linking up with Lisa-Jo Baker for Five Minute Friday. Click image to be teleported over to her website.

Five Minute Friday LogoToday, our word prompt is: GRATITUDE

GO

Sometimes being grateful is hard when all around me life is harsh and ugly. If allowed to overtake me, my ungratefulness takes over my mind and then my heart follows.

Being grateful is a choice. I can choose to be grateful. Instead of seeing the full on harshness and ugliness I choose to see the softness and beauty around me. God’s creation lends its softness and beauty. Stop and smell the roses, as the saying goes. Allowing the aroma to waft through my senses takes me away to a different place. A place where there is no harshness and ugliness, if only for a few moments. It takes my mind off of the here and now of whatever is going on. Listening to the birds singing to each other as I watch them gliding through the air. It takes my mind to God’s word:

Matthew 6:26-31
26 Look at the birds. They don’t need to plant or harvest or put food in barns because your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than they are. 27 Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? Of course not. 28 “And why worry about your clothes? Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, 29 yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. 30 And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, won’t he more surely care for you? You have so little faith! 31 “So don’t worry about having enough food or drink or clothing.

This is not to say that I float away with the pixies. It’s great to take my mind off of all the stresses of life occasionally and give my mind a break. Taking a mental break from time to time has allows me to bring my mind to what I’m grateful for in life. I love that saying:

Have an attitude of gratitude!

STOP

Happy Friday!