Does any of this make a difference? What is the use?

Why do I post gratitude each day? Does any of this make a difference? What is the use?

Over the last few days, I have been listening with my heart to all the grief, pain, angry, fear, judgement, blame, shame, and hatred. It is really easy to look at what is going on in the world today and ask the question why? How does gratitude make a difference? Does who I am really make a difference? What is the use of it all?

So many times, when life is filled with chaos I choose to get lost in it all. I can jump into fear and hide out. I did that most of my life. I used all the all blame games I could to make something and someone else responsible for all of my problems, and the issues in the world. One day I read a passage in a book that changes my life. "So you eliminate everything in your life that you don't like then what?"

I had to stop for a moment and think about it? What would I do if I eliminated everything I didn't like in the world? What would be left? I would be here all alone and happy, right? NOT! It is not the outside things that cause me pain. It is my inability to look at what it brings up for me that I don't want to deal with. So instead I make it "your" fault.

For me, the shift really happened when I heard the word "cancer" used in a sentence that was attached to me. All of my life I blamed everyone, and everything and there was so much self hatred within myself that I manifested cancer to eat it all away from the inside out. I realized at that moment that I was doing my best to eliminate everything I didn't like in my life. ME!

That moment in time allowed me to see the insanity in that kind of thinking. It allowed me to remember that fear, hatred, anger, bitterness, grief, sadness, pain, loneliness, isolations, had caused me to eliminate the love that was within to such a point that I was almost at the point of extension. How was that helping?

It was that moment in time that I vowed to live my life with my heart open! Regardless of what happened. It was worth the risk. I started taking responsibility for me, my life, my thoughts, my feelings, and my actions. I stopped listening to the news, fear based thinking, and gossip. I started reading books, listening to music that inspired me, and looking inside myself for all the places I had hidden in fear, pain, and shame. One by one I would take the self hatred out of the hiding place and embrace it, thank it, and release it from my life.

I couldn't fix the past because it wasn't broken. All I could do was to release anything within myself that wasn't aligned with love, joy, and peace. That was and is my life work. It was no longer about elimination, it was about embrace, give thanks, and release anything that no longer served me. At times it has been trying yet, I stayed the course. That is why I get up each day and write gratitude, and why I find something in my life to be grateful for.

My life, my love, my light is not in vain. It does make a difference! That difference is within my soul. It is who I am. Am I challenged at times. Yes! Yet each day I choose to get up, chop the wood of gratitude, and tote the water of love knowing that who I am does indeed make a difference.

Thank you for allowing me to share with you today.

I love you

Rev Allen