G.R.A.C.E.

What do you think of when I say "men are that they might have joy?" I was able to attend a lesson tonight on just that topic and they spoke of grace. We are all given the ability to have joy but we need to choose to have it.

The speaker broke up the word GRACE into an acronym to help us remember the key elements of her lesson.

GRATITUDE
The speaker is a woman who works with addiction recovery and she sees alot of broken people who come and speak with her and each time they do she leaves them with a small notebook and tells them to write down 2 things they are grateful for. So think of gratitude each day and that's why prayer is so important for our daily life.

RELATIONSHIPS
She then went on and talked about that most of us can like everything about ourselves 80% of the time and what happens to the other 20%? We pick out the negative about ourselves and more importantly others in that 20%. It was fascinating to think about.

I personally was put on the spot for this section of her talk. She asked who's birthday was coming up soon and mine happened to be the closest (which happens to be 13 days 9 hours and 30 min away. But who's counting!)

So I was asked to come up and she preceded to tell us that in her household when it was someone's birthday they sat around the dinner table and each had to say one thing they liked about that person.

Can you guess what happened? Yep! She asked everyone there to tell her something nice about me. Wow! That was a special experience for me especially for what my week has been like. I felt so special and so uplifted. Then she asked me to say what I felt about that experience.

Of course I was overcome with emotion because I just felt so loved and appreciated. I knew some of the the statements were true but then I thought about the 20% of the time when I think of the negative about myself, my kids, my husband! It was truly a gratifying experience to see that I do try to do things I should and be the example that Christ would want me to be even though I don't think I am.

ACTIONS
She referred to this one in regards to service and how in order to have joy we need to love and serve others. This happens to be my love language and I love to serve others and it makes me realize that when I get in my negative moments is when I need to find someone to serve and it quickly changes.

COVENANTS
I've made some important promises and covenants in my life and to keep them in the forefront of your mind is the key to having joy in your life. Because if you keep them they will keep you safe and on the right track so that I don't falter.

ENLIGHTENMENT
She ended with enlightenment and how we each need to have the spirit in our lives to help us make correct decisions and to lead us to where we want to be in life. It's definitely on of the greatest gifts that I will ever receive in this life.