In today's episode we are going to be talking about what it looks like to give thanks for a faith lens. This is a mini continuation of my previous episode titled Gratitude. Join me on this short but inspiring episode as we chit chat before Thanksgiving.
Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours. I pray this day brings blessings and abundance over your household. May you continue to set your mind on things above and be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Connect with me as you journey on in your mindset transformation! Now offering life coaching as a service, click the link below to get schedule a call with me.
In today's episode we are going to be talking about what it looks like to give thanks for a faith lens. This is a mini continuation of my previous episode titled Gratitude. Join me on this short but inspiring episode as we chit chat before Thanksgiving.
Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours. I pray this day brings blessings and abundance over your household. May you continue to set your mind on things above and be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Connect with me as you journey on in your mindset transformation! Now offering life coaching as a service, click the link below to get schedule a call with me.
I'm excited to connect with you! Remember, you can do hard things! "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me"- Philippians 4:13
*Affiliated with Painting Miracles, INC & Certified Life Coach through the I-A.M System
Hey friend, welcome to the Restore Mind podcast, where we are going to be talking about various life topics surrounding mindset transformation. Imagine what it will look like to have peace in your life, despite what the world is telling you. Hi, my name is Caroline, a wife, mom of three, and makeup turned fitness enthusiast. I am here to help you build a strong mindset that will propel you forward into a life of peace and joy. Philippians 4. 13 says, I can do all things through him who gives me strength. Well, my friend, there is freedom waiting for you. So if you are ready to build a 2. 0 version of yourself, then this podcast is for you. So grab your water, or whatever you like to drink, throw on your walking shoes, and let's get going because it's always 4. 13. Hello and welcome to the restored mind podcast. My name is Caroline and my friend. How are you doing today? I am super excited to have you here. And I'm so thankful that you decided to join me the day before Thanksgiving to listen in on today's. episode If you are a returning listener, thank you so much for coming back week after week, making the choice to be here with me. I am so grateful for you. If you are a new listener, welcome aboard my friend. I'm excited to have you as part of the restored mind family. And I hope that today's episode or any episode that you decide to listen to is inspiring to you and that you just like God's words, permeate over you, whatever sticks out to you. My friend, I hope that you, um, spend some time in that. Today. We are going to be talking about giving. Thanks as a Thanksgiving special for this episode. I know it's tomorrow, but but I just want to go ahead and say happy Thanksgiving. I don't know what you're doing, but however you are celebrating or wherever you're celebrating. I truly hope that it is filled with joy. As you make memories with friends and family. If you are traveling, please be safe. If you have family coming in. Have fun. I know that he can get loud and messy, but I would encourage you to just embrace all of that. I also wanted to take the time to recognize any army or armed force personnel. Is that. Are not able to be with family because of deployment or whatever they have going on. I just want to thank you all for your service and remind you that the you are not home. Where you would most likely love to be. You haven't been forgotten about you are in the thoughts of the ones who love you. And I appreciate you so much for your service. So. Thanksgiving is a day where we are all encouraged and reminded of what we are thankful for. Now. I personally never had a tradition growing up of sharing. What I am thankful for. But I do remember looking at the food around the table and listening to the voices of my aunts and uncles and cousins. And really just spending time with them. That I was so in awe of the warmth that I felt in my grandparents' home. And I felt so lucky to be a part of that family. And then I wondered how I got so lucky to be a part. Part of that family. Well, in today's episode, we're going to be talking about giving things. And I'm going to recap a little bit on an episode that I did previously called the gratitude. And it's where I talk about what it means and what it looks like. To live in a mindset of gratitude. I talked about the difference between thankfulness and what it's like to be grateful, which I'll share with you a little bit later on in today's episode. But it was heavily focused on gratitude because I shared. The things that keep us away from being grateful. And one of those things where, when we find things to complain about. which will only lead us to find many places in our life where we feel like we're lacking in something. When we find things to complain about. It will only let us see the ways that our life is lacking and it's going to discourage us to serve and it can also negatively impact our minded to thinking that our service is not needed nor has it been noticed or appreciated. I know that there's been times in my life as a mom and a wife and a place that I've worked, where I have felt like that. And, it was when I started finding things to complain about and looking on the bad side of things, so to speak. Really just things that kept me away from being grateful, grateful that I have kids that I'm able to help or a husband that I'm able to serve and in a place to work where I'm able to earn a living for, to help provide for my family. And so when I was in that mindset, The complaints that I allowed to come into my head space also open the door for more negative thoughts to invade into my mindset and attitude. And so that's just something that I know from experience that when we are in a complaining mindset, it can keep us from being grateful. The opposite of gratefulness ungrateful. And when we lead with ungrateful minds, our actions tend to show it. So there's some ways that you can assess your actions or Willy your behaviors. To see where you fall on the spectrum of being grateful or ungrateful. You can look at how easy you get upset when plans change suddenly instead of being thankful. That maybe you were still able to proceed with plants, even if it did change or if parts of it didn't happen for one reason or another. or if none of it happened at all and you ended up doing something else instead, where is the gratefulness in the change? That was unforeseen. To clarify, though, I do want to say that you are allowed to have your emotions and your thought towards these things, but I'm just encouraging you to look at this in regards of how you outwardly express your emotions. Towards others. Are you playing the blaming game? Are you extending grace Another way to look at it as how you react. When a mistake is made in the episode of gratitude, I talk about.\ how I was upset when I asked my husband to go to the store after work, to grab cilantro, antique grabbed parsley instead. And I was upset at that. I didn't extend grace. I wasn't appreciative looking back that he took the time. Out of his long day to stop by the grocery store for me to pick up something that I asked. So that I wouldn't be inconvenienced. And so definitely not my brightest moment, but also a wonderful learning moment for me as I reflect on my behavior or my actions, so to speak. And I just want to say that I. Applaud the ones who are willing to look at their flaws so that they may improve because it can be so daunting. And so hard that we tend to look away from that and only look at the things that we are good at. We're not really good at admitting to our flaws because we like to look at ourselves any more positive light, but there are some positives that come from us acknowledging where we fall short. That's how we grow. And so when you are taking the time to look at how ungrateful you may be, and that's not to be little anyone,. When you are looking at where your attitude is at and where your actions go. I believe that's very brave of you to even take a moment to evaluate where you are in your life and how you want to improve. And the only way to do that I believe is to look at where you're not improving so that you can be aware of that. But I just wanted to say that so that you may be encouraged and not discouraged. In this episode, I also shared how you can grow in gratitude and. I spoken that in and want to encourage you and remind you that you get the choice. To decide whether you want to have a mindset of gratitude or not. You have that freedom of choice. And when you decide that you do want to grow in gratitude, it takes work, work needs to be done for you to see improvement. So focus. Uh, what you have by being thankful. Which leads me into today's conversation. That was the perfect segue to actually get into today's conversation. If I'm being really honest with you, because we are going to be focusing on being. Thankful on giving things. Most of us can agree. That the word thankful and grateful are used interchangeably, but I personally believe that. They have very different meanings. And I said earlier in today's episode, that I'm going to be talking about the difference of gratitude and thankful. And this is the bit where I talk about it. So gratitude. in the episode that I was sharing about, I said it was the mindset or attitude towards Amy circumstances. Even when we don't have anything exciting going on. So think about your mundane daily routine when there's nothing exciting going on in these moments, it is your heart partial or your mindset of the things that you're doing. It's action-based right, because we're thinking about our attitude, which is not only a. Mindset thing of how we look at things, but also in how we carry ourselves. So. It's action-based you show your appreciation through your actions and that could be. Sending someone a just because gift, because you are truly grateful for who they are in your life. For the things that they'd done for you, or you send a thank you card because you received a gift It may be in how you want to be a blessing to others. So in how you are choosing to serve, because you've been blessed and you want to pass that on to someone else. Now, I said in the episode of gratitude, that thankful or being thankful as a feeling or an emotion that comes and goes. I believe that it is a feeling of relief or being pleased by the act of someone else. So when I think about is someone opening the door. I can think about the time where I struggled when I had small children and I was trying to go into a store with a doors are not automatic. Trying to get through that. Where was a struggle. So when someone took the time to open the door for me and to just walk through that door without any struggles, I was thankful for that. Maybe another reason to be thankful would be that someone's willing to babysit your kids, right? If you have children and someone's willing to, watch over them and provide a safe environment for them to be while you're off and running errands or having to go to a meeting or whatever it is that you're doing. That's something to be thankful for too. And just to remind you, you can be thankful and grateful all within the same situation. I know that I am thankful and grateful when someone is willing and able to watch my children. So as I started writing out this episode, A question came to mind and it is how can we be more thankful? And so I was pondering on that question for a while, and they only answered that. I came up with that for me, made the most sense as to change. Your mindset and set it on things above. Transform your mind. So the you're not conformed to the world and set it on things above so that you may not be distracted. The world loves to remind you that. We are to give thanks to the people around us. And in flesh we do. Because again, when someone opens the door for us, we're thankful we thank them for opening the door for us. The restorative mind podcast will talks about in a way of living. That brings us peace and joy through a transformed mindset. That comes from a faith blends. So applying what I said about changing our minds and setting it on things above applying that through a faith lens would be to change our heart posture towards God. And to put him first. So when we are actually thinking someone say, who's opening the door for us, we know that we are thanking them in the flesh for their act of kindness, but. Thinking God internally first for placing that person there who was willing to help us. Even if it was a small act of service by simply opening the door for us. Paul tells us in Thessalonians to give things and all circumstances. For this is the will of God and Christ Jesus for you. If you need a reference first it's one Thessalonians chapter five, verse 18, and you might be asking like I did. Give, thanks in all circumstances, that sounds hard to do. Why are we doing that? Because. nods. All circumstances are ideal. And my friend, if that is your thought too, you are absolutely right. Not all circumstances are ideal because life happens, but still Paul tells us to give things in these circumstances. And notice he doesn't say to give things for them. It would be very hard to give. Thanks for being in a circumstance that would not be ideal. We typically are not thankful for the hard times that we go through. For example, we find it hard to be thankful when we find ourselves struggling financially or we're in a broken relationship or struggling through. Not knowing who we are and trying to rediscover ourselves or really through any hard times. It's hard for us to be thankful for that. But Paul encourages us and tells us to be thankful in these times. Why is that? In the previous verses Paul writes rejoice, always pray without ceasing. In a hard times, we can pray without ceasing, by finding joy in the hard times. And I know it sounds crazy like. How are you going to find joy in the hard times you might be thinking, Caroline, you don't know my situation. You don't know the things that I'm going through. And my friend, I completely agree with you. I don't know what it is that you're going through, but I know someone who does, and I know someone who would not forsake you in these hard times. So we can pray. Without ceasing. I believe when Paul says to pray without ceasing his too. Fix our minds when our mind begins to wander. So say for example, there's maybe a pressing matter that's going on in your life right now. And you're trying to pray for relief of that. And in your prayer, you do fund relief, but as you go throughout your day, You find that your minds are wandering back into all the what ifs again? And you find yourself anxious and worried all over again. And you pray over that again, as many times as it takes, that's just a small example, but it's one that I had to share. And so when we find joy in the hard times, we can do that by looking on the brighter side of things, because God is light. He can not be dark and no darkness can overcome him. When I say to look on the brighter side of things, I'm not encouraging you to pretend that everything is okay. Or the ads we're just going to act like nothing is happening. That's not the case at all, but God is light. And so we can look to him for brighter days. We can look to him to be the light in our life, in the midst of our darkness. No darkness can overcome him. And so therefore in our hard times, We can look to him. Because we can still give thanks and how he provides for us when we are struggling. And how he heals us in our brokenness. and how he comforts us when we are lost. So my friend, this Thanksgiving season, however you are celebrating. Whatever your circumstances are. Give, thanks to God first. That's how we can ultimately become more thankful. By thinking God first for all that you have, because that all comes from him. He is there. In the hard times and in times of celebration. So remember his grace is sufficient for you. And know that you can do her things because he gives you the strength to do so. Happy Thanksgiving, my friends, if you are traveling, travel safe, be blessed, and I'll see you next week. Hey, thank you for listening. If this episode has spoken life into you or your mindset transformation journey, please share it with a friend. The growth of this podcast is possible through you. So thank you for your support and for being a part of the family. I look forward to talking to you again next week here on the Restored Mind Podcast.