Sunday, October 12, 2014

Heart & Mind Attitude

My soul feels so so full as I sat down to write tonight. This weekend has been wonderful. It started out with the consummation of s’mores and worshipping my Savior with my community Friday night. Saturday morning I went on a short run where the sunlight shined perfectly on the rice fields making them glisten with dew followed by slipping on my fav, earl grey tea latte at Starbucks while facetiming with my dear parents then holding a sweet baby at a lovely baby shower and eating tons of carbs for my big race day. And then today was the day I have been waiting for for a long time; my half marathon race in Korea- 13.1 miles or for those of you living in Korea its 21.0975km. (That’s right! That’s exactly the number that is on my medal I got today. I love it!!!) I finished the race, felt a little sick and totally exhausted, but my soul was happy. I have spent the afternoon refuelling my body that is crying for carbs, sugar and water so of course I had to get some bubble tea at my favorite little coffee shop as a treat and spend the afternoon reading there. It was lovely. I got to skype with a dear dear friend and I just finished eating my dinner (carbs) and watching God paint a beautiful sunset before my eyes. It was just stunning and breath-taking. Anyways, you probably didn’t need to hear about every detail of my weekend and I am sorry if you didn’t want to know, but this weekend just filled my soul up to the brim and I can’t stop smiling tonight and I haven’t felt this way in a long long time.  And I have point to make with all this information! J

So I decided to reflect upon why. Why does my soul feel so happy? What is different about the last couple of days compared to other days I have been living? How can I continue to feel this way?

This past week I have been thinking a lot about how easy it is to wander. Wander away from one that my soul loves. Wander into fear, into doubt, into striving, into taking control. It seems to be so much easier to wander into these things even though they are so unhealthy for you and full of sin. Instead my soul longs to wander into joy, into love, into peace, into contentment, into trust, into being still and not striving.

How can this been done? Well, it can be done thru surrounded, lots of prayer and choosing. Choosing. The reason why I think my soul felt so happy this weekend is because I choose to be content in each thing that I had the opportunity to do. I choose to look at the small things and find joy in them like the glistening rice fields, slipping earl grey tea, facetiming with my parents, holding a sweet baby and running a race that I have been training for.

What is different? The attitude that I chose to have. I was skyping with my dear friend today and this exact thought came across my head as she was asking me about teaching. Folks, a couple of weeks ago I lost my passion for teaching. I was going through a funk and decided that I didn’t want to be a teacher anymore. I was researching and looking up other jobs that I would love to do. Although there are some other jobs that I would love to do (be a hall director, wedding planner and full-time orphanage worker). I know that God has me in teaching for right now.  Anyways, all this to say since that moment of freak out I called out to God to help me gain the passion back for teaching if it was still His will for my life and He laid this on my heart that I have a choice to make each day. I can choose to embrace where He has me or I can wander and be miserable. Of course I don’t want to wander and be miserable so I bent my stubborn knees and allowed God to give me the desire to choose: to choose each morning to have joy as I walk into my classroom; to choose to have a good attitude; to choose to invest into my students and to choose to give them my very best as their teacher. It has not been easy since I have started choosing. I actually have had only had a couple good successful days because I remember about half through the day that I need to choose my attitude. Oh, dear! But on the days that I have chosen the day goes by so much more smoothly. I see through new eyes. I have better judgements and reactions to things that happen. I connect better with those around me and I feel joy. Choosing in the mornings makes a world of differences. I know that my heart is “ponder to wander Lord, I feel it,” but like the beautiful hymn Come Thou Fount says so perfectly “prone to leave the God I love. I say here’s my heart, o take and seal it. Seal it thy courts above.

 

How can I continue to feel this way? I want my mind to be focus towards heaven and to never take for granted the days that I have on this earth. I want to be able to wake up in the mornings ready to embrace the day that Lord has made. And today I am choosing to take this risk of committing myself to this standard for each day: choosing my attitude in the mornings. Hopefully choosing joy, peace, love, contentment and not striving for something that I am not. To help me with this committed I am going to commit to writing down each morning the attitude that I want for the day and then be prayerfully about it. Would you like to join me?

Love, Daniella