This month Jerrica and I read a book together. While this may start out sounding like a book review, it really isn’t. This book has left me thinking a lot and trying to applying it to my lives – so I thought I’d share my biggest take away. The book we read was “Pollyanna” by Eleanor H. Porter. I will tell you I probably would not have ever read this book if it had not been selected for my book club. I know that it is a classic, but I have never had a desire to read it. To the shock of my husband I have never seen the movie either. (I think we we will watch it as a family soon) I have to admit I was shocked by how much I really loved the book. In some ways the beginning of the book reminded me of “A Little Princess” by Frances Hodgson Burnett. My sister read that book to me when I was little and I always thought of the little girl having to live up in the attic. Pollyanna starts out by moving into her Aunt’s attic, so I started out thinking it was going to be much the same. In some ways it was, but in others it was very different.
Those that have seen the movie know that Pollyanna plays the “glad game”. It started with her dad teaching her how to try and find something she can be glad about no matter what happens, and they turned it into a game. As we read the book I found myself noticing things here and there in my own life where if we just could feel a little gladder about things and less annoyed, life would be happier. Especially when my kids would get upset with each other!
The thing that really stuck out to me in the book is when Pollyanna meets the local minister out in the woods. He was out there preparing his sermon for the following Sunday. He was stressed and feeling down because of the fighting, jealousy, and hurt feelings among the people in his congregation. Pollyanna, whose own father had been one, asked this man if he was glad to be a minister. She explained that when her dad would struggle or feel down, she would ask him this same question. Her father always said that he was glad. He told her that the “Glad texts” always helped him. By glad texts he was referencing all the places in the Bible where it talks about being glad, or reasons we could be glad. I guess one time while he was struggling the hardest (probably around when his wife was dying) he started going through the Bible and counting up all the places where the scriptures talk about being glad and found that there were over 800 places. He figured that with all the horrible things that happen in the world, if the Lord made a point of telling us to be glad over 800 times, there had to be things to be glad about.
That really stuck with me. Yes there are a lot of crazy things in the world today. There are times where I have to take a break from the news or social media just because it is always so negative it leaves me feeling down. Yes there are things about the pandemic that have been hard. BUT – there are still so many things to be glad about. I am now trying extra hard to realize the things that I am glad about in my everyday life. I am glad for my family and the added time I get to spend with them. Even though last week was hard with the weather and school being canceled, I was glad for the beauty outside my own windows. I am glad for the gospel and scriptures that I can read, and for prayer. I think as I continue my own scripture study I am going to start looking for places where it talks about being glad.
