Grateful! Great attitude to start the week with! Focusing on what you have and what you're grateful for can take away stress and anxiety, it takes your focus off the things you're worried about and reminds you that God provides. Even writing it down can really help in your quiet time. HA! quiet time! I didn't get much of that this weekend with two birthday parties for my 6 year old. But in the stress of getting the house clean and decorated, baking two cakes and managing a house full of people, what a gift to have so many people who love my son AND a house to celebrate him in.

But I think a lot of our stress from busyness doesn't come from the act of being busy necessarily, but from not having space in our mind to be grateful. There's no time to reflect on what we have and where we are in the present.

Try this: Pick a photo - any photo - from your camera roll on your phone. (like me, you probably have thousands to choose from LOL) And think about or write about why you're grateful for that memory. What stands out from that picture?

When you’re grateful for your past, you’ll be better at being grateful for right now, and then you can even be grateful for your future... Because “It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.” — David Steindl-Rast

Happy Monday.