Gratitude changes everything

“Both abundance and lack [of abundance] exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend…when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present—love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature, and personal pursuits that bring us [happiness]—the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth,” writes Sarah Ban Breathnach.

The year was 2002. I was six months pregnant with our fourth child and felt like I was dragging our three young children on plane after plane to get to Alaska. I was born and raised in Arizona and had spent my entire twenty-eight years there. I knew all the checkers at the grocery store and waved at people I knew as I drove down the road. My entire family lived there and all my friends. I was leaving everything I knew for a different life, and I wasn’t doing it willingly.

My husband Matt had come to Alaska three months previous and had determined that financially Alaska was the best place for our family. The first six months in Alaska welcomed us with trial after trail. Matt’s parents were both killed in a car accident on Christmas Day, I had debilitating back problems, our daughter was diagnosed with lung cancer and our son was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It didn’t feel like we should have come to Alaska. I remember crying for the first six months almost every day. Life felt heavy.

One day I stood in the post office line to mail a letter. It was a rainy, blustery day. The clerk asked the woman in front of me how she was and she responded with, “Just another day in paradise!” and she was being sincere. I was dumbfounded. I may have wanted to tackle her and take her to the window to look outside and show her it was not paradise. Then a thought occurred to me. Maybe she could see something I couldn’t see.

I knew something had to change. I determined that I would start a gratitude blog. I named it “Seeking the Sunlight.” On this blog, I would only put the wonderful things that happened--the things I was grateful for. The first entries contained confessions of my love for dirt and peanut butter M&M’s. Any little thing that I could be grateful for that day was recorded. It was a struggle at first and then something magical happened. As I continued to record all the things I was grateful for I learned to do what Paul the Apostle counseled in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” It felt like my eyes were being opened. I found joy in September sunsets, trees weighed down with snow and the first pussy willows of Spring. The smell of Autumn and the flight of eagles thrilled me.

My blog entries were so convincing that wonderful things began to happen. As I continued to document our life and display my gratitude, my family members started to come, one by one, until nine of my siblings and their families live in Alaska now.

The other wonderful thing that happened was that I changed. I became more content and life felt sweeter. There were evenings when I laid down to sleep and was overcome with gratitude for the life I live. My circumstances didn’t change. I still lived in Alaska, but my heart changed and that changed everything!

“There is one thing we can do to make life sweeter, more joyful, even glorious. We can be grateful,” taught Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Do you want life to be sweeter? Do you want to experience the joy of abundance? Does your heart need to be healed? Do you want to live a happy life? Then choose gratitude!

Ginny Hale owns and operates Harvest Point Farms with her Husband, Matt. They have lived in the Valley for over 15 years. She is also a professional genealogist and volunteers with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.