{haves & gets}

I am stubborn and I am selfish.

I have known that I was stubborn since I was young. I have heard this from my parents, from friends, my sister, and my husband. I get it. I think stubborn can be good, and of course it can have negative implications.

I have a harder time resonating with the fact that I am selfish. I have always considered myself a fairly good person, which left little room in my mind for being selfish. It was not very far into my relationship with Paul where he told me I was being selfish. I could not believe it! There was no way he could be right, but he was. Our relationship, and then our marriage was an eye opener to my selfish ways.

And at some point, I started doing a better job of managing my selfishness. I think I even thought I had rid myself of it.Then I became a mother. It turns out, that every single selfish bone in my body still exists. My selfish ways rear their ugly head each day.

My heart has been pretty ugly lately. I cringe if I feel like I am having to do more work than Paul and, well, I constantly feel like I am doing more work. I could make myself a list and feel proud of everything I do. And then I get grumpy or mean real fast. How could Paul possibly ask me to change another diaper, feed another meal, or put Elijah to sleep. Can he not see all that I have sacrificed. I get angry at the imposition.

Wow.

And honestly I have been living this way for some time and I did not even realize how toxic it was.

Recently, I was listening to a podcast and the guest was sharing about changing your attitude to one of gratitude. Which I always think is a great idea, but I struggle with how this would look like in my life. And then the guest on the show gave me the answer.

Stop thinking about everything that I 'have' to do

and start thinking about what I 'get' to do.

Okay, I realize this is probably so simple and something many others may already do. But it felt profound to me. I get to change this diaper, I get to feed this child because after years of struggling to sustain a pregnancy, we have a child. I get to cook dinner or clean dishes, because after years of hoping, I have a husband and a family. I get to mop my kitchen floor or straighten up the living room because I have been blessed with a beautiful home.

For myself, this simple change of replacing "have" with "get" has been meaningful to me. I need to change my 'haves' with 'gets' daily, hourly and sometimes several times in a minute. This brain change does not absolve me of my selfish heart or my selfish ways, but it is helping me to stop in the moment and grab onto gratitude.

How do you find daily gratitude?