gratitude

Inspired by Ann Voskamp's book, I opened my eyes to God's gifts, and - for 26 pages and more than 200 days - wrote them down.  Choosing gratitude changes my focus, which in turn changes my days.  Pick a post [or two] from the ones below to see how thanking is the offering that blesses the giver . . .


Someone recently told me that I've been a drag, and although it stung that she would say it, it didn't surprise me. I am literally dragging. It must not be pleasant to be around. ... But you know what? When I'm tired beyond my bones, into the depths of my spirit, and my children need me, I get up and go to them. When I'm exhausted and longing for peace and quiet, and the buzzer rings to tend supper  or change the laundry, I get up and take care of it.  ...  I am choosing happiness, I truly am. It just might not look quite the way you think it should. ...
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... I'm looking out the window at the bird-feeder hanging in the crabapple tree.  Lil' Snip had noticed that it was empty, so we got a scoop and carried the bags of birdseed out under the tree and took the feeder down and, scoop by scoop, taking turns, we filled the feeder.  Hung it back up.  ...  And now who is eating that seed?  Sparrows.  ...
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... there's no growth chart for this, for these uncharted waters I swim through, no way to measure my progress.  I grew up on grades and "good job" and I don't know how to be enough, just being loved.  (am I?  I want to ask, am I?) ...  a friend reminded me of the words of one of my favorite authors, Ann Voskamp, on writing out her God-gifts:  "Because the picking up of a pen isn't painful and ink can be cheap medicine.  And I just might live."  ...  So there's the way out, or at least through, once again:  to list them, all the day's joy-moments and eye-brighteners and spirit-lifters, to just write them all down after the post that doesn't end neatly no matter what, to just give thanks:  
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... I am a mother.  Somehow, they love me, those little people whose lives depend on mine for so much.  Somehow they forgive my faults, and - oh God! - forget them, besides.  They say I'm fun, and cheerful, and pretty and they truly see that in me.  These are gifts I never deserved, never thought to ask for.  ...  I've learned about God's love by watching Him form it in me for those little ones, growing so fast into what He made them to be.  What I didn't know was that He's also teaching me about His love .... by loving me through them.  ...
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...  I've had a sore throat for over a week.  I'd had enough by day three, when I lost my voice.  Waking myself up at night coughing did nothing to improve my attitude.  Despite leading a talk on home remedies at our moms' group earlier this winter, I could not kick this cold.  ...  It's Monday, after a full Easter.  My throat still hurts, and I'm drowning in hormones and breaking the yoke in my egg brought the tears this morning and boy, do I want to wallow.  ...
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...  I'm in one of those dry, battle-y spots where I keep waiting for the win, so I can write about it.  ...  But it doesn't come.  ...  And here's what I decided to do:  write anyway. ... Love, I know, is a choice.  Someone told me that, once.  Or maybe I read it somewhere.  Poetic, isn't it?  Bracing in a pleasant, theoretical way. ...  But then there I am, folding his underwear when I am furious at him for being himself and not the implausibly perfect version of himself I've invented.  Cooking his breakfast when his touch makes me bristle.  Looking at him in the bathroom mirror, trying to smile ....
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All week, we breathed, in & out ... talked, read, sat in the sun ... drank in the outdoors God gives us for our inner calm.  ...  It stilled our souls, readied us for "regular" again, made it easier to say no, thanks to things that steal our still, our gratitude re-birthed.


It's 8:42 p.m.  In about fifteen minutes, I'll head upstairs to get ready for bed, and by 9:30 (in my ideal world), my head will hit the pillow and I'll drift off to a mother's only vacation:  sleep.  ...  Tomorrow morning I'll get up with my Farmer,  ...  and another day is off and running.  ...  There's so much the same, day after day.  So little to remark on when someone asks me, "what's new?"  And yet, as a friend reminded me today, it's what we have.  This is the life we've been given, the life we'll look back on one day, in wonder that it was so quickly over.  ...  Will I have really lived?
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... I have listed, in the last 200-some days, nine hundred and ninety-nine gifts:  noticings, lifted up from the ordinary into glowing shafts of gratitude, till their origins are obvious:  they are good and perfect gifts, showered down on me from the Father of lights, gift after gift after gift.  ...  They didn't come gift-wrapped.  No bows to alert my attention. ... Some days I wrote nothing down; I never stopped to see.  ...
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I must have sneezed dozens of times today, violently, and used dozens of tissues.  The insides of my elbows and knees now boast an itchy rash to match the one on my neck.  Since I'm waking up with red, seeping eyes, my contacts are on vacation until further notice, and my glasses, while far more attractive than the 17-year-old fossils they replaced, are rubbing my head where my head is not used to being rubbed.  ...  In short, I am miserable.  ...  But ... I am choosing my focus, again. 
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...  The fire has gone out.  My fingers are cold.  ...  But you know what?  I am a grateful woman. ...  World Vision Catalog came to our door a week ago, and as we pored over the photos of foreign children holding ducks and goats, suddenly the wish lists we'd laboriously thought up for the children in our lives seemed awfully petty. ...
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...  My ears had heard all they could hear.  The older children were happy-loud, and I was thankful for their health, but they had recovered not just their health but some of their bad habits as well, and I was too tired to do anything about it.  (I know, I know, I'm not supposed to admit that.  It was, however, the unfortunate truth.)  ...
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When it's sunny and the children are cheerful and the husband is home and the floors are clean and time lasts longer than the to-do list, it's easy to be thankful, it flows effortless as springwaters after rainfall. ...  But it doesn't bless me like being thankful does when the rains have been scarce and the spring has dried up to a trickle. ...
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... It was one of those days today.  The fourth child is birthing his own fourth, an eyetooth.  Stubbornly sensitive, lingering, that pearly little gem will not emerge.  The tender bud that will be gets in the way of everything he wants to chew: toast, beloved apples, even cheese.  Understandably, he resents that.  Unfortunately, he resents it loudly.  Unrelentingly.  Even in the middle of the night. ...
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...  It's overcast and drippy without actually (to my somnolent knowledge, anyway) raining.  It's the first really cold day of fall.  Add that to two nights out with the family and a serious need for sleep catchup and you have the ideal conditions for a knock-em-dead middle-of-the-day nap. ...
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...  The night before a daughter asked a Daddy why we wear our Sunday best to church.  I didn't catch the answer, but looked around me now, engulfed in golden warmth, and saw a Sunday best that's not just saved for Sunday, but daily on display to feed my soul with beauty.  ...  And the gifts just keep coming, heedless of season (outside or in my heart), pouring into my lap like love ....
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...  I walked along a riverside park today, newly healed from flooding.  ...  I passed a tree, tipped over on its side, roots to the air and trailing branches in the current. It would not die: all along its trunk it sported sprouts, green hope that willed itself to live.  ...
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Suddenly, out of the long longed-for sweet, crisp autumn air, comes a bad case of congestion.  I don't even care much if it's allergies or a cold.  It hits me hard, and I just want to lay down my heavy head and close my strangely aching eyes and dream of other things.  Any dream will do, really, as long as I can breathe in it.   ...  And yet.  I have a choice.   I can dwell on (and in) my misery .....  Or .... I could aim high, hitch my wagon to that star, and grasp for gratitude.  I will.
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...  How easy it is sometimes to be grateful. This week is a particularly easy one to thank in – we're vacationing from home this week, and looking forward to all manner of enjoyment together.  ...
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... The days were just packed ... packed loosely, though, and as full of stillness as they were of activity.  So lovely long and slow, the handful of days felt like luxurious weeks.  Last week my Farmer took off work and stayed home with us to play.  ...  The girls helped my Farmer set up the tent, and we embarked on the good life - out of doors.  
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...  So joy is choosing.  Whatever is right, whatever is true, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - to find these traits in everything, and think on them.  The ugly is so obvious, sometimes.  The admirable takes some searching, but always worth the hunt.  ...
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Starting the night before to get my Monday off on the right foot, I mentally gather my blessings and jot them down:
1) homemade bread, with butter
2) the skill and desire for (and delight in) making it
3) sharp knives to cut it with (well worth the summer week of college spent selling Cutco)
4) that I married into butter and not margarine!
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I'm writing tonight from my throne, a pale pink peony tucked behind my ear and a pearl bracelet cool on my wrist.  I've discovered a taste for being fanned, and sung to.  ...  It all started with supper. ...
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...  Sugar and I share a journal, writing back and forth to each other, sometimes as regular as schoolwork, sometimes as inspiration strikes.  She wrote to me yesterday, asking me what I would wish for, if I had three wishes.  (She'd choose a spyglass, a bell for her bike, and pretty painted bedroom walls).  I had to think awhile.  ...  Here is what I wrote:  ...
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A summer rain, rushing in to drench a dreary world, and leaving filled with sun.  ...  A small boy with a blue rhinoceros on his shirt, reaching up soft arms in confident appeal.  ...  Companionable daughters, hair-dressing their dollies.  ...  A quiet hour, a good book to read, a bar of chocolate.  ...  Lightness of heart that arrives with the rain, inexplicably.  ...  Gratitude.  ...  The Father of heavenly lights, down from whom comes every good and perfect gift.  ...  Joy.  ...
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I spooned lumps of cookie dough onto the trays, mulling over this anomaly:  I was doing as much as, or more than, I would have on a day powered by a to-do list, and yet .... I felt relaxed, carefree.  Was it the extra sleep?  Having "backup" (as husbands who work away are gratefully but inadequately called when they are home)?  ...  Both sleep and the presence of my stalwart husband help, of course.  But I feel as if I have discovered something alluringly simple.  Today I was focused on enjoying the day, relaxing, just being with my family.  My intention was to deliberately "waste" my day.
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