Brendan & Lori O'Gara

Today I want to tell you that positive thoughts attract positive things.

I know some of you out there that are saying, “Oh great, here we go with some hokey positive thinking theory….yea yea we’ve heard it all before.” Hang with me a second, you are talking to a fellow skeptic here.

There has been a time or two in my life when I was desperate. Desperate for money.  My checking account looked like old mother Hubbard’s cupboard , it was bare. I don’t mean down to a couple hundred more like less than twenty.  One day in particular I had less that ten bucks to my name, a quarter of a tank of gas and no outlook for improvement.

A friend said, “Think positive. Thank God for what you need and live as if you already have it. Then thank God for what you already have. I promise you positive thinking will improve your situation. Trust me.” After I resisted the urge to call the men in the white coats to take my friend away ha ha…..I decided what do I have to lose?

Me being the skeptic rebel that I am, I prayed and thanked God for an exact amount of money, $40, (didn’t want to be greedy) and a half a tank of gas. Then I went to bed laughing at myself. I know as a Christian God doesn’t work that way. God is not some fairy or genie who grants wishes.

I filled my next day with positive thought.  When something started to go wrong I would not allow myself to think negative about it, I shifted my thinking. All in all it was a good day. No it was an amazing day. I was happy. I didn’t feel the stress that I normally feel when I am in a bad situation. I did not hyper focus on the bad things that could happen. I left the What If monkey in his box.

What made this day amazing? I was broke. I had no money, no gas to get home on from my job. I should have been devastated. I decided to look at what I did have, a job, a family and I was alive. Then I thanked God for it. Did my account amazingly fill with zeros? Nope. Did some magic happen to fix my situation? Well, sort of.

Long story short, I sold three books out of my car in a parking lot, like some literary drug dealer. I took the money and put some gas in the tank. That’s right you guessed it, I had a half a tank of gas and $40 dollars in my pocket at the end of the day.

I was not much better off, but I was better. What did happen is my belief in positive thought and prayer increased that day.  It happened in a way that all the talking my friend did the day before, could not. I learned from experience.

I can’t make you believe that positive thinking works. You have to discover it on your own, living through it. It will get better.  Trust me.

Believe in the power of positive thought.

~Lori O’Gara