Thursday, September 9, 2010

Poor Mentality

I realized the other day that my poor mentality that I developed as a child is holding me back from being the best person I can be, the person I want to be.   I grew up poor, really poor.  I'm the oldest of 7 kids and had a Dad that was unemployeed the majority of my life.  We lived off welfare and the goodness of other peoples hearts.  I remember as a child worrying that there wouldn't be enough money for food, or that we would loose our house because there wasn't enough money.  (I actually even paid our mortage once when I was like 16 or 17).  Because of that I feel like I have a deep rooted poor mentality.  I realized a part of this years ago.  Being poor in my home it seemed like people owed it to us.  I don't know what it was or is but I learned to be ungrateful.  When people were generous to us or me it seemed like they owed it to me to be generous.  I don't know why but that's they way I thought. As soon as I consciously realized that's what I thought I worked very hard to change that.  To be more grateful to others for their kindness and generosity.  It is still something I have to be consciously aware of, but over the years I feel I've become more grateful.

As of recently I realized being generous is not something that naturally or quickly comes to my mind.  It's always a second thought.  Even with stupid stuff like food.  When we have people over for dinner, because of my poor mentality it crosses my mind that the food our guest will be eating will not be left overs, so I'm "loosing money" having people over.  Really who even thinks of that kind of stuff?  It's not like we can't afford it.  I'm constantly trying to save money, in the stupidest little ways.  Ways that probably don't really help, but I think about it.  I feel like rather then being the generous giving person I want to be I'm greedy and selfish.  Because in my mind everything has a $ dollar sign on it.  I'm glad I've become aware of this, so that I can improve.

I prayed for help in over coming this poor mentality and opportunities to give.  Later that week I made dinner and realized there was going to be TONS of left overs.  My instinctual thought was to keep it for left overs, or put it in the freezer for later.  Then I realized I had been blessed with an answer to my prayers.  I called a neighbor who is a working mom, who also had Young Womens that night.  I asked if she had made dinner yet, or had something planed.  She did not.  So I asked if I could bring her dinner.  When I dropped it off she said it was an answer to prayer.  Little did she know it was an answer to my prayer too.  I'm so glad the Lord loves us.  I'm so grateful that through the atonement I can change deep rooted thought processes, change who I  am and become more like my Saviour.

2 comments:

Kendra said...

That's awesome. I love it when you answer someone's prayers and even better when it answers yours too! You are an amazing person and I'm happy to see that you realized something about yourself you didn't like and are working to change it.

Stephen and Erin said...

You are so cute Tarina!