Step 1, Step 2

I just finished reading "A New Kind of Normal" by Carol Kent. In it, she says that when we are in the midsts of sadness or depression we must do two things.

1.) We must acknowledge to God, out loud, the things that we have to be thankful for.
2.) We must do something for someone else.

What does this do? It takes the focus off of me and puts it back where it needs to be. First and foremost, with God. And then, secondly, I can use that Godly focus to bless the others around me and keep myself from self-pity.

And there are a few things that I can always be thankful for, no matter what the circumstances:
1.) God is Sovereign
2.) God is Consistent
3.) God Loves me

1.) God is Sovereign-
Over everything. If he is in control of it all, that also means that my life is in His hands.

When God speaks to Job, he says:
"Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? … "Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place,when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt'?Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place,that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken.Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.What is the way to the abode of light?Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings?" (Excerpts from Job 38)

2.) God is Consistent-
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.- Hebrews 13:8

God is no less good to me on the happiest day of my life than He is on the day of my life that is the most painful.

Paige Benton states this perfectly in an article she wrote where she was frustrated by her singleness:

"Can God be any less good to me on the average Tuesday morning than he was on that monumental Friday afternoon when he hung on a cross in my place? The answer is a resounding no. God will not be less good to me tomorrow either, because God cannot be less good to me. His goodness is not the effect of his disposition but the essence of his person--not an attitude but an attribute.

I long to be married. My younger sister got married two months ago. She now has an adoring husband, a beautiful home, a whirlpool bathtub, and all-new Corningware. Is God being any less good to me than he is to her? The answer is a resounding no. God will not be less good to me because God cannot be less good to me. It is a cosmic impossibility for God to shortchange any of his children...........

I am not single because I am too spiritually unstable to possibly deserve a husband, nor because I am too spiritually mature to possibly need one. I am single because God is so abundantly good to me, because this is his best for me. It is a cosmic impossibility that anything could be better for me right now than being single. The psalmists confirm that I should not want, I shall not want, because no good thing will God withhold from me."

3.) God Loves me-
God has said, "I will never, never fail you nor forsake you." - Hebrews 13:5

God's love for me is evidence by the fact that He would spare nothing, not even His own Son, His own Being, for me to truly have what is best.

We need have no fear of someone who loves us perfectly; His perfect love for us eliminates all dread of what He might do to us. If we are afraid, it is for fear of what He might do to us, and shows us that we are not fully convinced that He really loves us. -1st John 4:18