Past, Present or Future?

I thought of something last week I would like to share.  

The secret to being happy is being grateful.  My divorce was the worst crisis of my life.  I had grown up going to church, but I had gotten disconnected from God.  So, after the divorce, I turned to God and started to read the Bible…..and every page I turned to, talked about "giving thanks".  I was not in a mood to be giving thanks.  I was very sad and could not believe this was happening to me...my family was being broken.  But everywhere I turned to in the Bible, I came to a place where it talked about giving thanks no matter what.  I was angry, I did not want to give thanks and I did not think there was anything to be giving thanks for.

Finally, I gave in and started thinking about what I could give thanks for.  I started giving thanks for very basic things...we were living in my parents' house in one room and so I was grateful we were warm, grateful my boys were healthy, grateful I had formula and diapers for them, etc.  (my brothers and sister gave me me money for gas, formula and diapers for like 8 months - looking back, it was probably a good thing I didn't have a job because I've always thought that if I did have one, I would have gotten fired because I was in no condition to be working)  Anyway, what I discovered.....was that I could not be depressed while giving thanks. Later,  I remember people wondering how I was handling it so well...I just started looking for things to be grateful for...anything and everything, nothing was too small.  

Well this last week, I was reading something about the fact that our brain cannot be in the present and the past at the same time or in the present and the future at the same time.  If it is in the present, it's in the present, if it's in the past, it's in the past and if it’s in the future, imagining some wonderful vacation, it’s in the future.  It occurred to me that when we say we are grateful, it is in the present tense or when we say “I am grateful for this”.....”I am grateful for that”....same thing.

So....that explains why we can't be depressed at the same time that we're giving thanks!!!!  Isn't that cool?!!!!  I LOVE THAT.

So what does this have to do with parenting?  When I went to college, I met a lot of kids who came from families who had money and I noticed that some were nice and some were not...I came to the conclusion that the nice ones were grateful for what they had and didn't take it for granted....so I decided that I could spoil my boys as long as I taught them to be grateful....and thank God, they are VERY grateful.