Attitude Adjustments

We have a home in this area that we’ve owned for many years. When we had to move away several years ago, we kept the house and rented it. Recently, we found several things wrong with the house and asked the renters to move so we could work on the house.
When we took a good look at the place, it was obvious that it needed more than we could give it in just a day or two. Several of us spent three days earlier this month at the place, and we uncovered issue after issue that just sank us deeper into discouragement. It turned out the house was a lot more in need of attention…major attention…than we had thought.
We kept thinking that we had found all that we were going to find, then something else would manifest itself, causing us to THEN think we’d found all that we were going to find, etc. We reached a low point, I think, on the night of the third day. Since then, it’s been a struggle to maintain a good attitude while working to correct the problems.
Having a good attitude and a positive frame of mind is so important in any aspect of life and living. I must confess that I don’t have that kind of an attitude nearly as much as I should. I tend to take things personally. I want to make things worse than they are. I think that no one in the world has the problems that I have.
Then all I have to do is look at the girls we serve here and their families. All I need do is look at the people of Greensburg, Kansas or Coffeyville, Kansas (tornado and flood, respectively). Or I can look in any nursing home or hospital, any prison, any mental facility, any of a number of places to find people who would gladly trade places with me.
Why is it that we have such a hard time figuring out that we have a lot going for us and that God is indeed good? Why do we continue with the martyr complex? Why can’t we see life as good? Why do we dwell on the bad, the negative? I don’t know the answers to those questions. I don’t know if anybody does. But I do know that I’d better get an attitude adjustment quickly, or I’ll miss out on what is truly special about living.