Attitude Check: Praise the Lord!

I still remember at a high school youth rally, this corny phrase the leaders would yell at the crowd: "Attitude check!" to which we quickly learned the correct response was, "Praise the Lord!"  At the time, it was just one of those things we did.

But today, I remembered that little phrase and the answer.  My attitude has been awful lately.  Somehow, even though it is Easter and Spring is coming, and this is the time to be experiencing joy and peace and hope and excitement about the future, I felt overwhelmed all weekend with negative thoughts that distracted me from all the beautiful things going on around me. I had had a whole day alone on Good Friday, in which I had become very interested in facebook, and all the wonderful things going on in my friends' lives, which spurred on a sense that my life is not overwhelmingly full of wonderful things, and this somehow led me to question moving to a bigger city, and why everything has not magically converged into a wonderful, inspiring story of events.  Right now is a "middle of the story time," and the things I would like to see coming to fruition are not... yet. 

In times like this, thoughts can spiral, until nothing looks good anymore.  Luckily, I have grown to recognize when I am in a negative thought spiral, so I can now see the difference between the "inner weather" of my mind and the "outer weather" of actual circumstances.  But even still, it can be hard to shake negativity. 

But - at Easter dinner, one of my older cousins was wearing a beautiful bracelet.  It said "True, Honorable, Just, Pure, Lovely, Gracious" in very pretty lettering. 

This, I can see now, must have been the "still, small voice" of God, speaking to me.  I remembered a verse I've been thinking about a lot lately, which I really need:

"Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things." Philippians 4:8

So today, I ditched my negative, inner narrative of my life, and started making a list of the things in life that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely and gracious.  It was two pages by the time I finished, and I felt so much better!  It is leading me to a few conclusions:

*I hear over and over again how facebook tends to lead to negative, envious thinking.  I want to invest less time on facebook and more time in real life. 

*Sometimes I think negatively when my life is small - the smallness of thinking, usually just getting through the day instead of being conscious of the bigger picture.  When this happens, I need to think big - remember some of my dreams, or the things that bring joy, and pursue them.  One thing I am going to do is start playing music for residents at nursing homes again.  Just the thought of this brings joy. 

*I keep hearing that whatever we focus on tends to grow.  I do not want to focus on negative thoughts!