Picture Frames
Each day, you have the opportunity to "frame" your day.
Your thoughts and choices, along with whatever else surrounds your day's circumstances, are quite literally a framework: they're a lens, through which you perceive your day as "good" or "bad."
Here are two ways I could frame a single day's work:
- Negative: I parked in the wrong spot, and missed the shuttle to and from the hospital because of it.
- Positive: I started my day with a good walk, and the fresh air felt good. Also, even with the mishap, I was on time for work. Yay for planning ahead and building extra time into my schedule!
- Negative: I didn't get a lunch break until 3pm.
- Positive: I enjoyed a delicious salad, and I got a lunch break.
- Negative: I missed an IV start, and had to let someone else do it.
- Positive: I learned from that experience, and the next two IV starts went great!
- Negative: I had to walk past the morg on the way to the floor where I work, and emotionally process the sight of death, right as I started my day.
- Positive: All my patients survived the day, and showed improvement in health. Yay! Also, I'm alive and healthy. Can't take that for granted. Life is a gift.
As you can see, I could look at my day as terrible: It was busy, I parked in the wrong spot, lunch was delayed, I messed up an IV start, I was faced with emotional challenges, and the list could go on and on. Yuck.
Yet, if I choose to focus on the positive, I can be thankful for food, for a job, for the life God has given me, and for the ability to learn and grow in my nursing abilities. And... so much more. Try just listing a few things you're thankful for.
It is actually IMPOSSIBLE for you to be thankful and frustrated/ungrateful at the same time. Your brain can't do it. If you don't believe me, try it. You won't be able to do it.
Therefore, every day's attitude is a choice.
If you play the comparison game, you're bound to lose. Everyone's "picture" or "snapshot" of a day will look different, and that's okay. Yours will be uniquely beautiful if you frame it in thankfulness.
So, simply put, be thankful for where you're at.
Live the life God has given you, and choose to frame it with a thankful heart.
Be satisfied with the gifts you have, not selfish for the gifts you don't.
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When you start your day by framing it in thankfulness, all of a sudden, God gives you the grace to see the gifts set before you. You can't be simultaneously thankful and ungrateful.
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I like to explain a day as a beautiful painting of a sunset. On the left side of the painting, there are dark storm clouds. On the right side of the painting, the sun is glistening in all its sunset-filled splendor. The colors are bright and beautiful, and the light penetrates even the storm clouds.
If you hold a smaller frame over that image, you could see just the storm clouds through your picture frame. Or, you could just see the sunset.
Where will you hold your frame? What lens will you choose to look through?
I'm not saying you need to forget about the negative parts of your day. In fact, those parts are important to think through and process. Yet, you can't dwell there. Your focus needs to be on the things you're thankful for.
We serve a God whose love penetrates the darkest moments. He is a God who calls us to be thankful in each and every circumstance, and simply put, that's God's will for you (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
I pray that each person who reads this is gifted with thankfulness, joy, and positivity. May the picture frame of your day be blessed.
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"As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness." ~ Psalm 17:15
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