I wish someone told me at the beginning of this year that cultivating gratitude doesn’t mean that you can’t get frustrated EVER.

The first few weeks of this year I walked around with rose-colored glasses pretending that I was being realistic about my situation. Don’t get me wrong, I felt fine. Things were going well…and then my car breaks down and it’s rendered useless for the next couple weeks and I’m throwing almost an entire paycheck into it.

You know what I did? I said, “that’s fine” and I went along my merry way because I wouldn’t be grateful otherwise. Anything less than that is unacceptable. This year is all about pursuing an attitude of thanksgiving, ya know?

Fast forward another week and I’m in a huge transition at work. Well, if I’m being honest, I’ve been in a huge transition at work for months now and it’s hard to stay grounded when everything is up in the air. I’m a downward spiral and where’s the heart of thankfulness then? Where’s the celebration now?

But that’s life – it throws you curve ball after curve ball and you’re expected to hit it the other way.

There comes a time when you need to take off the rose-colored glasses. That time comes when the curve ball hits you right smack in the face and you learn that you’ve been playing the game all wrong.

The heart of gratitude doesn’t come from ignoring your circumstances and pretending that everything is A-OKAY when all you want to do inside is kick, scream, and cry. That’s not gratitude, that’s downright deception.

It will only be a matter of time before reality comes out and we grumble. We complain. That’s when we let comparison come in. We look to our neighbors, where the grass looks greener and ask why we can’t have what they have.

We become bitter and unable to communicate what frustrates us the most without sounding ridiculous. Because let’s be honest – 9/10 times what tends to frustrate us the most is usually what’s out of our control and it’s hard to be grateful when you’re not in control.

Let’s be real for a moment and realize that we’re allowed to have both good and bad days without being ungrateful. We’re allowed to be frustrated about our current circumstances while still celebrating the good that comes in this season.

One day, our circumstances will change and if we haven’t learned to thank God in the valley, it’s only that much harder to thank him on the mountain top.

You and me together, let’s let go of what we can’t control and fight for what can. We can control our attitude and how we respond to our circumstances.

We can begin to take small steps of faith in our own race rather than looking at the race someone else is running.

When we focus on the race we’re running or when we practice celebrating the good even in the midst of the bad, we begin to water the grass marked out for us.

And will ya look at that, the grass is greener where you water it!