I got together with a good friend recently whose marriage has been rocky for a while. For an equally long while I’ve been encouraging her to stick with it, instead of leaving her husband out of frustration.
Lately things have seemed to be getting better for her, and I asked about it. She said, “Yes, it is better! And do you know what made the difference? I knew for a long time that the key lay in thankfulness, but I was stuck because there were so many things I wanted in a marriage that just weren’t happening. It finally dawned on me that I wasn’t looking at the whole picture.” And she picked up a pen and wrote this:
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Things I want that I have |
Things I want that I don’t have |
|
Things I don’t want that I have |
Things I don’t want that I don’t have |
She tapped the lower right-hand phrase. “This is what I forgot. When I focused on what my marriage didn’t give me, I forgot to include that there are things it didn’t give me that I don’t want to have. When I allowed myself to be thankful—really thankful—for all those things, I started to find more perspective.”
It’s a thought worth considering.
