Dear Stairway family,
July was full, fun and fantastic for us! After walking through several touch & go situations with our moms during the first few months of the year God has brought one truth to rest in my heart more than ever and that’s the attitude of gratitude. Maybe that’s why last month the Lord has bombarded me with so many dreams about it! I can’t count the mornings lately that I’ve awoken and have unwittingly started praising God. I mean I wasn’t trying to manufacture it as I’m used to doing, (as I’m definitely not a morning person) but it would just automatically come out of me. After a night of dreaming about what I have to be thankful for I would automatically arise praising & thanking Him with a full heart.
One of the dreams I had in this season was of a room filled with balloons, so many balloons that when the door was opened balloons began rolling out. It was impossible to keep them contained. There was no room for anything else as the balloons took up all the space. When I awoke I realized that the balloons represented a party or gratefulness and the room my heart. When my heart is full of gratefulness there’s no room for anything else. There’s no more room left for complaining. God wants to fill us so full of gratefulness that when the door of our heart or mouth open up only gratefulness will roll out. When we’re grateful there’s no room for bitterness, anger, complaint, self-pity, the list goes on & on. There’s no space left for anything else to get in! Here’s a few fun sayings having to do with gratefulness that I’ve picked up along my merry way:
- “Gratitude turns what we have into enough.”
- “Gratitude can be a habit of the heart.”
- “It doesn’t matter if the glass is half empty or half full. Be grateful that you have a glass & there’s something in it!”
- “Showing gratitude is one of the most powerful things humans can do for each other.”
- “Trade your expectations for appreciation and your whole world will change in an instant.”
- “Never let the things you want make you forget the things you have.”
- “The less you want the more you love.”
- “Be thankful for what you have no matter how bad you may think it is, your life is someone else’s fairytale.”
- “If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that money can’t buy.”
- “(From Winnie the Pooh) Piglet noticed that even though he had a small heart it would hold a rather large amount of gratitude.”
- “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough and more. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home and a stranger into a friend.”
- “We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”
- “Choose to look through grateful eyes. It will never look the same way again.”
- “Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses.”
- “No matter how bad you think life is, wake up each day and be thankful for life. Someone somewhere else is fighting to survive.”
- “The happiest people don’t have the best of everything. They make the best of everything they have.”
- “Each day I’m thankful for nights that turned into mornings, friends that turned into family, dreams that turned into reality and likes that turned into love.”
- “Gratitude is one of the sweet shortcuts to finding peace of mind and happiness inside. No matter what is going on outside of us, there’s always something we could be grateful for.”
- “Be grateful for small things, big things and everything in between.”
- “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and never giving it. “
- “Gratitude can transform common days into extraordinary ones, routine jobs into joy and ordinary opportunities into blessings.”
- “What if you woke up today with only the things you thanked God for yesterday?”
- “Keep in mind that someone else is happy with a lot less than what you have.”
- “We often take for granted the things that most deserve our gratitude.”
- “It’s not happy people who are thankful. It’s thankful people who are happy.”
Do you need any more convincing? How about starting a gratitude journal or at least keep a running list in your heart. Fill up the room of your heart with party balloons of all shapes & sizes and then let them spill out of your heart or mouth as it opens!
“In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (and me)!” 1 Thess. 5:18
Time to get our gratefulness on!
Lord, turn our mourning, our griping, and all our complaining into dancing. Infect our hearts with gratitude!
Candice Simmons is a true spiritual mom in the body of Christ with a passion to see the bride of Christ awakened and brought into the full activation of their gifts and callings. She has been in ministry for 47 years mentoring both young and old, men and women. She received Christ in the early 70’s during the Jesus movement and immediately began ministering to the next generation of young people.
In the 80’s she and her husband, Brian were tribal missionaries serving in the jungles of Panama. They were field leaders and ministered to the Paya-Kuna tribe, living on the border of Panama and Colombia for nearly 8 years. In the late 80’s they returned home and established Gateway Christian Fellowship, a hub for revival and awakening in New England where they ministered for 18 years and established a network of churches called ARC.
She was a fore-runner in establishing the prophetic in New England and taught classes on the prophetic and established a prophetic ministry in their church called Impact. She is an avid dreamer and gifted in interpretation of dreams and uses this gift to minister hope and destiny to the churches.
Today they have an itinerate ministry (Passion and Fire), traveling the nations and internationally teaching and prophesying to churches. At the same time she is helping her husband with their new Bible Translation called the Passion Translation and has co-authored three books with him; The Sacred Journey, Throne Room Prayer and The Image Maker (soon to be released) and is currently working on two more books, The Stairway and The Dreamer.
