Attitude is everything

I mention in my welcome message that I am positive to the point of delusional. LOL Its just an natural instinct with me to find humor, or the good in every situation. I live by that verse about what is meant for evil, God can turn to good. I may get flak, called a Pollyanna now and then but I can’t help what I am. I came across this Sunday School lesson from my mom’s journal about attitude. Here is what she wrote:

“Matthew 17:14-21, Matthew 15:18

….Jesus healed the boy and handed him back to his father. They all shook their heads in wonder, astonished at God’s greatness, God’s majestic greatness.

I love to watch the congregation on Sunday morning. Some are quiet, in thought and prayer. Some are visiting with other people, moving around. Some are watching the doors to see who comes in. Some sing, not only with their mouths but with their hearts. Others just mouth their words while others may not even pickup the hymnal. When the preacher preaches, some are like blotters, soaking in every word, every emotion of the preacher. Others are totally unresponsive. People that really come to worship, that come to do business with God, they always find him there. We find in life what we want to find. What a person thinks determines what he is. The Bible says “for out of the overflow of his heart, his mouth speaks.” Your face reveals what you are on the outside. I always get tickled at my daughter LeeAnn. She would always tells her boys when they were little and came to visit “the good news is that we are going to stay for 2 nights, but the bad news is that we are going to go home on Sunday”. Life is like that. Once while on vacation I saw a needlepoint. When I read it, I burst out laughing. It said “sometimes I wake up grouchy, sometimes I let him sleep.” Did you ever go somewhere in a foul mood and discover that everyone you encounter is in a foul mood also? You go somewhere with a happy face and discover most people are happy like you. You get what you expect. If you tell your child his whole life that he is gonna be a failure, he usually is. As children we begin to store thoughts in our minds. Our minds are like a computer, full of stored things for future use.
As children we are influenced by the people we look up to and love. It is proven that if the people we love as children are positive then we grow up positive.

I love this story of a poor old lady in Florida. She was always happy. On her face she wore a constant smile. She didn’t have much in the way of material things and she had lots of problems in her life. Someone asked her “why are you always so happy? I know you have lots of problems in your life”. She replied “I’m happy because I have Joy”. Then she was asked “well how did you get that Joy?” and she replied “J is for Jesus, O is for others and Y is for Yourself. When you have joy you have everything. Jesus, others and yourself is what Jesus stands for and Jesus was the most joyous person who ever lived. He was totally dedicated to God’s will and that is the secret to true happiness. Attitudes can be changed and when our attitudes change, people change. Here are some ways to change our attitudes.

1. Be kind to others, open, not withdrawn. Be interested in their life, not always talking about your life.
2. Don’t be offended easily. Some people walk around with a chip on their shoulders waiting for someone to knock it off.
3. Don’t worry about making a good impression. This does not mean we should go around trying to not make a good impression. Some people worry far days if they have said anything that might have offended someone.
4. Don’t worry socially. Don’t compete with people. Don’t try to keep up with the Jones’s . God made each of us unique.
5. Be stable emotionally. Be the same yesterday as today. Act the same no matter who you are around. Don’t follow the crowd. Stand up for what you believe in. Stand up for God and He will honor you for it.
6. Be cooperative. There are people around you that you will never please. Something is always going to be wrong. They set their minds before they ever go anywhere to try and shift the blame to other people. They will never admit to a wrong attitude.
7. Accept people, love people simply because they belong to God and He loves them. They are people in their own right and have just as much right as you do to their opinions."



Good advice and I can say that my mother had the best attitude of anyone I have ever known. Once she said that God spoke to her and told her Betty, your earthly name is Betty but my name for you is Joy. She exuded joy. She made the best of every situation. She had no enemies that I know of. She made every person in the world feel as though they were the most important person in the world to her. She listened and she cared. The day after her death, many people stopped by the house to bring food and pay their respects. Each one would come into the kitchen and tell me what a wonderful woman my mom was. Each one would talk about her as if they were her best friend. This was the most amazing thing to me. My friend Bill at one point said “your mom had a lot of friends”…and that is true. The amazing thing is that every single one of them thought they were her best friend and that is because she treated every single one of them as if they were.

My mom raised 5 children and in the early years, before my dad became a Christian, she was often raising us on her own as he was on the road and at the bars a great deal of the time. Yet I never saw my mom’s attitude change from competent to despair. I won’t say that she was always happy. But she just accepted what came her way and made the best of it. Her attitude even in the worst of times was one of gratitude. There is always something to be thankful for.

My children were fortunate to know this remarkable woman for many years and know the joy she brought to everyone around her. Mema as she was known was their hero. She played with them, she listened to them, she loved them heart and soul. Even as she lay dying her thoughts were of her family and what we meant to her. She told each of us what we meant, told each of us how proud she was of us. She left us with a legacy of joy and hope and faith that cannot be broken by the sting of death.

This weekend I visited my dad in Kingfisher. I had not been back to the Nazarene Church where my mom attended and taught Sunday School and where her funeral was held since she died. What a bittersweet morning it was, walking through the doors of that Church that held so many memories of my mother. As I sat and looked around and one by one spotted people she had cared about and that cared about her, the pain in my heart was overpowering.

How I wished she were there sitting next to me and my sister and dad and my niece and nephew and my dad’s girlfriend Deronda who was my mother’s best friend when she died. I remembered the exact location of where we sat at the funeral, I could almost see the yellow rose covered casket. I could remember distinctly the heartache on my dad’s face and the tears streaming down his cheek and my son Chris getting up from next to me and going to put his arm around my dad where he sat. All of this came flooding back .

And after the service one by one my mothers friends came to greet me and hug me and tell me how much they still missed my mother and how proud she would be of me and how I have moved on in my life.

I am reminded often that even in sorrow, there is joy. Sorrow that she is no longer here on Earth but joy because I know where she is and I know someday I will see her again. After her death we all could have had the attitude that without her, our family glue, we could not possibly remain a close family. But instead we have cherished her memory and had an attitude of gratitude for all she was and all that she instilled in us. I hear her voice even now saying to me LeeAnn, you have to keep smiling even when it hurts. You have keep your spirits up because your boys and your dad will be looking to you. And so I will. For her.