Attitude Check

Two weeks ago while walking the dogs I bumped into our landlord.

"What are your future plans?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said.
"You better figure it out quick because my new tenant moves in June 1," she said.

Huh?

I went home and said to Randy, "I think we just got evicted."

My emotions over the next couple days swung from disbelief to anger to worry to excitement and back to anger.

And in the midst of that swing I wondered: what if there is more to being intentional than just the things I do -- hiking and reading and dating my husband? What if I can also be intentional in my response? my perspective? my attitude?

In other words, could I train myself to always respond with kindness and believing the best about others? could I intentionally look for the silver lining in every interruption to my plan?

Throughout the last week Randy and I have been intentionally focusing on the positives:

• Perhaps we'll find a place with cheaper rent. 
• We want to make a big move in the fall, so this could be an opportunity to downsize before we make those major changes. 
• Maybe this is just the motivation we needed to take those next steps toward our future adventure. 
• No matter what, we'll be together and God has a plan. 

Our landlord stopped by over the weekend and told Randy that she had another rental property that was coming available and she wanted to give us first dibs.

"That was very thoughtful of her," Randy said when he was relating this conversation to me later.

I looked at him like he was crazy!

He was right, of course. It was thoughtful. But I still wanted to be mad at her; I still wanted to be mad about the whole situation. After all, why couldn't her new tenant move into that other house and let us stay in ours?

But then I remembered all the positives we had listed about moving sooner rather than later. I remembered that I was trying to be intentionally kind and believe the best about everyone (landlords included!).

So instead of meditating on how selfish I thought she was being, I started rehearsing in my mind what I would say if I bumped into her: "That's so thoughtful of you!" "Everything is going to work out great!" "I love adventures!" "We are flexible!" "I hope your new tenant is as happy here as we have been!"

Blah, blah, blah.

Okay, so maybe I have a ways to go in this, but if I am intentional about deciding ahead of time how I want to respond to life's curve balls, I am at least headed in the right direction!