November Thoughts on Abundance

As my year of focusing on 'Abundance' joins the month most often associated with gratitude, I find myself thinking about how the two go hand- in-hand.

As I have spent the past 10 months thinking about, reading about, and learning about abundance - I have come to believe that you can not experience true abundance without gratitude. 

If you are not thankful for the things that you have and are not grateful for the abundance in your life - it is never going to feel like enough. It doesn't matter how much you have. It doesn't matter how rich, full, or satisfying your life is.  Without gratitude, that abundance will always feel more like scarcity.

On the other hand,  if you live life with a thankful heart, full of gratitude for the things you have, it can always feel like an abundance.  No matter how little you may have, if you are thankful for it - it will always feel like plenty.

When we are grateful, we aren't focusing on the things we don't have. We are too busy being thankful for what we do have.  This focus magnifies and increases it in our hearts and minds.

Do you have a gratitude practice, such as writing in a gratitude journal or keeping a gratitude list, to help you focus on your abundance?  Tell me about it in the comments!

February Thoughts on Abundance

One morning recently, I left a pitcher to fill with water in the sink while I was taking care of another chore. I misjudged the time and came back to find the water overflowing and going down the drain.  Turning the water off, I was reminded of my word for this year: Abundance.

We can only keep so much for ourselves. There is only so much any one person can hold, use or even appreciate. It's just like the water overflowing the full pitcher.  Going down the drain. Unused and wasted.

We are never meant to just accumulate the abundance.  Hoarding it for ourselves. We are meant to pour the overflow - the abundance - out to others.

It's in the giving that we are able to receive abundance.  We have to pour out some of the abundance - sharing it with others - in order to make room for the more of abundance to continue flowing into our lives .

January Thoughts on Abundance

For my word of the year for 2022 - Abundance - I try to spend sometime each day with the word.  This might be thinking about abundance - what it looks like and means to me, what it might mean to others, etc. Sometimes I look up Scripture verses related to abundance. Or I might read a book about Abundance. Or look for quotes on the subject.  My hope is to share some of the thoughts or insights this gives me each month with all of you.

As I pondered on the word during this first month of the year, I began to think it's possible that finding abundance doesn't start with obtaining more or "having it all".  

Maybe it begins with just enough.

Perhaps you can't have true abundance until you realize that what you have is enough. That you are enough.  

It's only when you are able to realize and appreciate the enough-ness of your life and yourself that you can begin to recognize and appreciate the more-than-enough that is abundance.

My One Word: Abundance

It's that time of year again.  As 2021 has turned the page to 2022, everyone is setting resolutions and goals for the new year.  I'm not much for resolutions.  It's not that I don't like making them - I love new year resolutions! It's that I never keep them.  This is why several years ago I stopped making resolutions and started selecting one word each year to guide me throughout the year.  

For 2022, that word is "Abundance".

I always feel like I don't have to think much about picking the word. Most years a word just keeps coming up again and again, pressing into my heart and mind until I recognize it as the word for the next year. This year the word started as "more", but then as I began thinking about what that would look like for the year - it began to shift toward "abundant".

This word has the potential to be a bit tough for me. I often think from a mindset of scarcity or frugality. So to live life with an attitude of abundance is going to take a bit of a paradigm shift.

For me, abundance isn't about wealth (or not just about wealth). Abundance is about living life with my mind, my heart, and my arms open to receive the overflowing of the abundant life that God promises and all the good things that brings.

An abundance of joy and love. 

An abundance of health. 

An abundance of strength - in mind, body, and spirit 

An abundance of faith that God will provide beyond my wildest expectations. 

An abundance of creativity for creating new content for the blog and items for my Etsy shop.

An abundance of gratitude for all that I have.

Abundance means believing that what I have is enough and being secure enough in that to openly share the overflow with others that are in need. 

So, here's to 2022 - the year of abundance!

Do you select a word for the year? If so, tell me yours in the comments.  Or share what abundance means to you. 

An Attitude of Scarcity

I've been thinking recently how much of my life has been lived with an attitude of scarcity.  That fear of "not enough".

That I'm not enough.  Not pretty enough, smart enough, talented enough, strong enough, or good enough.

Always thinking, feeling, believing that there's just "not enough".  Believing somehow that if someone else is getting something: time, attention, affection, praise, love, readers, sales, friends, a great job - whatever; somehow there won't be enough left for me.

http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=8422&picture=empty

That I am not enough to deserve or to earn the things I want, or need, for myself has led to a lot of self doubt, resentment, anger, and jealousy.

Instead of grabbing the abundant life, I allowed myself to believe was one of scarcity.  Like Eve, surrounded by a life-filled beautiful garden, I found my attention drawn over and over to what I felt I couldn't have.  The cup always half empty.

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It's an ugly truth.  One I didn't - I don't - want to look at.  But there it is.  And the only way it's ever going to change is if I take a long, hard look at it.  Examine it for what it really is. Stop looking for the empty holes, look instead to the promises God made about the abundance He has planned for us:

That He came so that we can have full lives (John 10:10)
That He has plans to prosper us.  To give us hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11)
That if we lean on Him, He can do immeasurably more than we can ask for - or even imagine! (Ephesians 3:20-21)
That our confidence will be richly rewarded (Hebrews 10:35)


If you are like me, and have allowed yourself to buy into the lie of scarcity for too long, it's time to let it go.  Grab the abundance!
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