Kent State University, Clark Hall 2nd floor. What did I expect? I knew that I hadn’t been pushing myself to my fullest potential academically. I knew that partying and dating had consumed every aspect of my attention span. I sat in one of the private bathroom stalls in the all-girls bathroom on my floor, steps away from my dorm room, crying so hard that my head hurt. I made myself sick and begun to completely panic. How could I face my family? How could I let this happen? I had just received notice that I had been placed on academic probation and was being threatened with expulsion from the university. Depression, excessive amounts of alcohol and partying had everything to do with it, but the main contributing factor was my inability to see myself for who I truly was. My perspective of who I was shifted at a very young age. The painful devastation of the results of my parent’s divorce, led to inconsistencies in my relationship with my father. My heart was infiltrated with the lies of insignificance, that would haunt me for years. I carried this belief of insignificance with me to Kent State, and in that moment in the bathroom, my academics revealed just how little I thought of myself and my abilities to succeed.
All I could think about was what I was lacking. Everything about me that I hated, and everyone that hated me. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the reactions people would have if I had to leave school and move back home with my mom in Columbus, Ohio. My mind was racing and I had to decide what I was going to do… face it all, or escape? I contemplated suicide that day, to be honest it was all entirely too much for me to handle. I thought out a plan, even sat down to write the letter. I had thought that I had made my mind up. If I was going to be kicked out of college, and shame my family in that way, I was positive in that moment that the ridicule and judgement of others would be too much for me to face. I couldn’t take the, “I told you she’d never be nothing” possibility. In those moments in that bathroom, I couldn’t see myself. I couldn’t see through the dark forest of lies, that there was a path leading me towards the woman that I was destined to become someday. However, the worse part about it was that I couldn’t see how much I was drastically selling myself short. When someone is struggling with sadness, they are struggling with not only their thoughts, but also their perspective. Little did I know, if you begin to change your perspective, you will begin to change your life. This situation with my grades and Kent State University pushed me to make a choice. A choice that shifted the entire perspective of my life, towards gratefulness.
Have you ever heard the quote, “Happiness is a choice”? What are your thoughts on that? For so long, I thought “I wish people would shut up!” when they said that to me. I thought, “I can’t choose to be happy, because I’ve had all of this stuff happen to me and I am not happy about it- AT ALL!” Today, I want to flip that quote and say to you that, “Gratefulness is a choice.” In that bathroom at Kent State, I was grateful at that capacity, for the first time, in a long time. How can you be grateful and borderline suicidal? Well, the overwhelming sadness of leaving Kent State, revealed my true heart for it. It revealed my deeply rooted desire to continue to pursue my education as well. The devastation of leaving revealed my admiration towards staying. I felt the preview of the loss I would experience if I had to let Kent State and my college career go. That feeling of loss, brought about my perspective of gratefulness to be there.
Use your devastation, to impact your admiration. Haven’t you heard the saying, “You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone”? THIS IS SO TRUE! To walk in gratefulness, you must change your perspective from focusing on what you lack, to focusing on what you have. It’s a requirement to experience the fullness of gratefulness. I could provide "The Ultimate List" of all the steps I took from that moment in that bathroom, to earning my degree at Kent State University in 2014, but that’s not the point here. That wouldn’t truly serve any of you. Instead I say this, when you begin to position your heart in gratefulness, joy will ALWAYS follow.
Grateful people aren’t always rich and have it all together, but grateful people are rich in love and know it will all come together. I chose to use gratefulness to my advantage. I decided to clean and respect my dorm room. I began to remove myself from relationships with people who simply didn’t serve my life. Now don’t go ending relationships because you’ve “been called to” after reading this post. Instead just reevaluate, and become more present in your interactions with your friends and family. How does interacting with them make you feel? Are these relationships healthy for you and where your life is going? For me during that time in my life, the idol, that is the approval of man, had always been something I struggled with. I wanted everyone to like me and approve of me, so I used to just hold onto friendships and romantic relationships just to feel the approval of it all. Through growth and the maturation of my relationship with Jesus, I embraced the truth, that the only approval and validation I needed was rooted in Christ’s death on the cross. Not everyone is called to be a character in your book. My mom always told me this. I’ve grown and experienced along the way, but I choose daily to be grateful and not broken in what I lack. I have chosen to accept the blessings that came into my life as well. I have been so blessed to receive the love of my step- father, and the group of beautiful, life-long friends I made in my latter years at Kent State University. My perspective of gratefulness has led me to a broken heart for the world, instead of a broken heart for myself and my past. I choose to sponsor a child in need, instead of focusing on my own “needs”. As you’re reading this post, someone is enslaved in human trafficking. As you’re reading this post, someone is living daily in a country at war. As you’re reading this post, someone is homeless and starving. We are so incredibly blessed. Blessed beyond measure, meaning that there is not metric system out there, that can begin to quantify how amazingly blessed we are. How immeasurably blessed you are. I choose gratefulness when things go wrong, where I used to choose anxiety and sadness. I encourage you to choose gratefulness if you are struggling with something in your life right now. How? How can I do this? Well, get yourself a journal. Head to the Dollar Tree if you’re ballin’ on a budget.
Once you have your journal, it’s time to begin the work. Each day, you are responsible to write at least 3-5 things you are grateful for. Sounds easy? You’ll see! The goal is to try not to repeat. This exercise has contributed to the healing experience in my life. When you fill your journal, you will feel so incredibly full and blessed, and that’s because you are. You are extremely blessed. Focus on what you have, and forget about everything you believe you lack. Happiness may be a choice, but I know for a fact that Gratefulness is a choice for certain. Gratefulness is something you can choose to work on today, right now in this moment.
This scripture in Matthew continues to increase my awareness of how God continues to provide for us. How we can leave the worry of what we lack in the past and move forward
Kasai Marie
Matthew 6:25-30 New International Version (NIV)
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?