One of the triggers for my fibromyalgia is the rainy weather. The rain also starts the mold in the window sills that have to be diligently watched to keep clean. The rain makes me cold and once I get cold from wet jeans, it takes hours to feel warm. The rain makes the floors nasty when we are loading and unloading the car. These are all my thoughts most of the winter and I complain, complain, complain.
I complain without even realizing that I am complaining. It has become such a habit to be negative about the wet weather that when I rise and see rain ‘again’ my heart gets deflated. One year, I even cried when the first rain of the season arrived.
Then this morning! I woke up blurry eyed and sore and I looked out my window and saw the fog admit the greenery before my eyes. I saw golds and greens and the most vibrant colors and I realized, without all that rain my view wouldn’t be as breathtaking.
It was a shifting and a reflection of myself. What other beauties am I missing with my complaining heart? What other joys, or moments pass by because I complain, complain, complain?
*God wants me to give thanks in EVERYTHING!
1 Thessalonians 5:18- In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
This is the day to rejoice! This is the day the Lord has made! I should wake up with a song on my lips despite what is going on in the weather forecast. Yes, it hurts my muscles, but I can rejoice that I am able to rest when needed. Yes it is cold, but I am able to rejoice I have a warm home. I need to shift my thinking to be on my rejoices rather than my frustrations. The frustrations are going to be there weather I like them or not, but if I let them be my focus they have robbed my joy.
*I am not shining if all I am doing is complaining.
Philippians 2:13-15 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
Do all things without murmurings and disputings:
That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;
Time to remember the things the Lord has placed in my heart and break the habit of complain, complain, complain. I am not picking that back up!
quote: Watch out for the joy-stealers: gossip, criticism, complaining, fault-finding, and a negative, judgmental attitude.
Joyce Meyer
