
Your life will become one of happiness and joy. When you start feeling a pity party coming on change it into a surprise party by counting your blessings. I felt more gratitude for the softening and refining that come because of the Atonement of the Savior Jesus Christ.”ĭuring this month of Thanksgiving invite a little more happiness into your life, increase your faith, and change your focus.Ĭount your many blessings name them one by one,Īnd it will surprise you what the Lord has done. I became ever more certain that our Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers. Eyring again: “More than gratitude began to grow in my heart. Our thoughts are turned to God as we acknowledge Him as the giver of all gifts.

”Ĭounting our blessings leads to greater faith. As that happened, and it happened often, I realized that trying to remember had allowed God to show me what He had done. As I would cast my mind over the day, I would see evidence of what God had done for one of us that I had not recognized in the busy moments of the day. Before I would write, I would ponder this question: “Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our children or our family today?” As I kept at it, something began to happen. I never missed a day no matter how tired I was or how early I would have to start the next day. When our children were very small, I started to write down a few things about what happened every day. Eyring shared his experience with keeping a gratitude journal: It allows us to see what God has given to us. When we count our blessings our focus changes from what we don’t have to what we do.

Gratitude in adversity has actually helped me get through it and has turned the adversity into a blessing. My level of happiness is directly related to my depth of gratitude, even during the hard times. In these three words you have the finest capsule course for a happy marriage, the formula for enduring friendships, and a pattern for personal happiness.” But it isn’t complex.īeing grateful makes us happy. We fail to be happy because as the prophet Nephi clarified, “And the labor which they had to perform was to look and because of the simpleness of the way, or the easiness of it, there were many who perished.” We think the path to happiness cannot be as simple as that ‘Count your blessings’ and so we go looking for a more complex answer. We’ve heard this over and over but that’s because it is so simple it needs to be beaten over our heads! Many of us are like the Israelites of old who, when bitten by poisonous serpents, just needed to look up to the brass serpent Moses held to be healed and live. Pretty soon they are all focused again on her.Ĭount your blessings. Of course the other children are counting too to make sure it is right. She will call on that child to come up and help her count the buttons or beads. Inevitably there will be a child who causes a disruption that could very easily ruin the learning for the rest of the children. When it is her turn to teach at church she wears a dress or skirt with lots of buttons or a necklace containing many beads.

I have a teacher friend that uses this to her advantage.

We like to have a concrete “something” to show for our time, for our efforts.Ĭounting also helps us to focus. Why do we apply numbers to things? Why do we count? As humans it is easier to deal in finite terms. I want to make sure we haven’t forgotten anyone! When we get in the van to go anywhere I count heads. She is trying to earn enough to buy a skirt she wants. My 11 year old daughter counts her money. He wants to reach the magical age of six. My son has been counting the days until his birthday.
