This is part of a Huffpost article about gratitude which was posted during the Thanksgiving holiday. It is such a simple concept that filling yourself with positive thoughts, learning, or gratitude  is a choice – a choice that moves you away from the alternatives.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Pastor Don Mackenzie:

Several years ago I found myself saying that when we live our lives framed by an awareness of our blessings, we can find the resources to cope with our curses, with our difficulties. But when we live our lives framed by an awareness of our difficulties, we cannot get access to our blessings. When we are not feeling grateful, we are more inclined toward resentment. And resentment is what happens when life contains too much suffering and sadness, when things don’t go the way we had planned, when our dreams seem fragile. When that happens, we must find our way back to gratitude. It takes practice to keep in touch with our blessings, practice through prayers, meditation and other forms of centering. What the practice gives us, in time, is a way to open our hearts, a way to get beyond the ordinary boundaries of our egos to a place where we can, in an awareness of blessings, be lifted above the difficulties that might otherwise frame our lives.

Full Huffpost article here.