Attitude

 As I wrote about your great grandmother, Alma Rose, last year in this challenge, it would be redundant to do it again.  So that left me with a nice big blank as to what to do this year for the letter A.

 

Finally, I settled on talking to you about Attitude.  Attitude is half the battle in most situations or circumstances life throws you.  Let me give you a handful of examples.

 

Back in High School I figured out if you act like you belong where you are, people by and large would assume that you did.  Attitude.  I'm in this hall between class, I have a purpose and reason for being here, I don't shrink down or try to hide when I see someone and they upon seeing me don't bother to ask or question because they assume I have a valid reason for being there.

 

Then later on at work I realized attitude worked in other ways.  A shy, quiet girl I was working with had a man out on the warehouse dock make an unseemly, suggestive remark to her.  Her immediate reaction was shock and fear.  She ran away crying.  Later on, she had to avoid the man at all costs, because anything he said upset her.  While in the same type situation I had never missed a beat, never stopped walking, just called out over my shoulder, "Yeah, in your dreams."  The person never spoke to me again.

 

While in these situations attitude might help you navigate the social waters of the world, this is not where attitude is your biggest ally.  It's in those private battles you fight in your head, your body, your heart. 

 

A right attitude, a positive attitude, can make the darkest day seem bearable.  As when I believed that my mother was better off dying and going to God then surviving that massive aneurysm to live as a vegetable. It can help you hunker down and complete the most menial, mind numbing tasks.  Like cleaning up vomit in the middle of the night when you are sick yourself.  It can cause you to be thankful no matter how bad things are financially.  Seeing that you do have what you really need for existence.  The warmth of your home, the flowers outside, cuddling your child.  It can allow you to hold yourself together in the most trying of times. Because someone more venerable than you is depending upon you. It can give you the strength to do what your body tells you is impossible when there is no doubt something has to be done in order to save something or someone precious to you.

 

How can you have the attitude you need to get through, to get over?  Many times I have found the strength by thinking of one or both of you.  In financial hardships the best way is to simply do as the old hymn says and count your blessings, name them one by one...see what God has done.  But the most surefire way I know of is to pray to God to help you see things as He sees them, to see the people in your life as He sees them.  He is faithful.  He will show you another side of the person, another viewpoint on your circumstance. Then with this new outlook and the assurance of His presence (after all, He showed you so you know He is present) you can adopt a new attitude.  A more positive, less selfish, long range attitude to help you see above and beyond the storm that you are in.