r/gratitude

This has been an incredible last 4 weeks.

We made an offer on a house we feel in love with then waited a full week for the other offer to fall through. Then all pieces came together including down payment and successfully breaking our rental lease.

It has been an exhausting week of moving, cleaning, and unpacking, but watching a scary moving in our own living room and having views of beautiful sunsets out our front window is amazing.

Grateful is an understatement. At 42, I can say I am a homeowner with my husband. I never thought it would be possible but here we are. It doesn't even feel real at times!

god bless me enough to see the power of pausing. to investigate thoughts, to pay credence and understanding, to discard them when necessary, to embrace them when they’re principled. 

to not be so selfish.

I’m thankful for my experiences, failures, successes and the journey I’m on! It isn’t the easiest but I’m glad I found Jesus, He has through His word made me appreciate what is before me and what I’m going through! Glory to God.

Hi online friends
I think I need to start appreciating my simple life—a life that is simple, but lucky.
I’m not a very rich person. Like most people, I struggle with work, life, my career, family, and money. I’m a simple person, and for now, I haven’t built a family of my own yet.
There was a time when I felt like I had been dragged into a deep depression and became emotionally unwell. And honestly, I still struggle with it now. After recovering from surgery for a brain tumor, everything seemed to slow down. Somehow, I started to realize that maybe I should stop for a moment and focus on the life I already have.
During my recent vacation, I flew back to my hometown with my family. All of us are busy struggling with our own work and lives, so we don’t always have the chance to get together or see each other. This time, I spent my whole vacation with them.
The week felt so short and passed so quickly.
Today, it was finally time for us to fly back to the country where we work. Yes, we have to go back to work.
My flight was economy class—not business class, first class, or anything luxurious. My meal on the plane was just chicken and salad. But when I looked out of the window, I saw the endless sky beneath and around us, and I suddenly realized that we were actually flying above the clouds.
It wasn’t my first time on an airplane, but for some reason, I suddenly felt a quiet sense of happiness growing inside my heart.
Every year, I fly back to my hometown, but I have always treated it as something ordinary. I wouldn’t take photos of the sky. I wouldn’t take photos of the airplane meal. I would just glance at it, eat it, and think to myself, “Oh… this doesn’t taste very good.”
But today felt different.
Suddenly, I realized that my life is simple, but lucky.
I have the chance to see what the sky looks like from above. I can eat chicken thousands of feet above the ground. My family is sitting beside me. I can drink a cup of tea in the sky while reading Harry Potter on my little Kindle. I can even look closely at the wing of the airplane and wonder how something so huge can stay in the air.
These are all such simple things, but somehow, today they felt special.
I’m still confused about my life and my career. I don’t really know what I want. I don’t like my job very much. I just like painting, but I’m not a professional artist, and I’m definitely not the best at it.
Sometimes depression still pulls me toward a dark place.
I just turned 30.
On one hand, I feel anxious about getting older because I feel like I still haven’t started doing what I truly want to do. Sometimes I wonder if I’m realizing all of this too late.
At 30, should I already have figured these things out? Is it too late to still be trying to understand what kind of life I want and what kind of career is right for me?
My depression hasn’t simply gone away, and I still don’t really know how to deal with it.
I often shut myself off and avoid talking to people or putting myself in social situations. Somehow, communicating with people face to face can make me feel anxious. Instead, I find it easier to talk to friends I know online.
Maybe it is because there is a kind of distance between us. We may only ever meet online, and maybe we will never meet in real life. They don’t fully know who I am, and I don’t fully know who they are either.
I’m often afraid of saying the wrong thing or making someone angry. I’m also afraid that someone might misunderstand me or become upset with me. I care too much about what other people think of me.
But when I talk to online friends, sometimes it feels easier to share things that I keep deep inside. Maybe it feels safer because I don’t have to worry as much that someone who knows me in real life will hear what I say and then start seeing me differently.
For now, I think I should push myself to start noticing and appreciating my simple life.
Because maybe I am luckier than I realize.
I have people to love, and I have people who love me.

The best gift our parents gave us was each other: friends & allies for life.

Hug wife of 40 years from behind and kiss her on the crook of her neck. She says, “Thank you, love.”