Oh, the things to be grateful for.

The number is in the thousands…

If we’d just stop and take a moment…

If we just stopped and saw God in our every day life.

Saw the gifts He has surrounded us with.

• The smiles of strangers.
• The encouragement of friends.
• The gift of family and love.
• The gift of salvation.
• The joys of snuggles, laughter and hugs.

Yes, if we just trained our hearts to see Him.

See His hand on our lives, we’d have a thousand gifts counted each day instead of taking months to capture them.

Instead we lose sight. We get bogged down with the trials and the struggles. We miss the gifts.

• The sunsets and rises.
• The butterflies that flash their colors across the yard.
• The rainbows after the storm…or from the sunlight’s casting off a mirror in the house.
• The sun shining on my face, the warmth it gives off.
• The mountains that rise and speak of the grandeur of God’s magnificent creation.

We miss them, thousands of them. Everyday. We miss them because we are too busy. We are too worried. We are too overwhelmed with life’s struggles.

We miss them.

The whole reason to write out a gratitude list each week is to remind me not to miss those gifts.

It’s to remind me, as I look back over the days, that God is here in my life, giving me lots of things to be thankful for. Even in amongst the trials that I face.

He loves me.

He gives me gifts and I, too often, am not looking for them, or worse, I am not grateful for the ones He gives.

Laundry, dirty sinks, lost items…messy lives…all leading to show me that LIFE is happening in my home.

It could be a picturesque magazine (one I dream of often) but there is no LIFE in those pictures. In fact, very few of them even have people in them.

Life creates messes. Life is often a mess.

BUT God…

He gives us beauty.

He gives us new life.

He gives gifts.

Ones we don’t deserve.

That is something worth being really grateful for.

And in the meantime, I am still endeavoring to find the thousand gifts He gives me in my everyday mundane life. As I find them I am seeing that it isn’t all mundane. Another beauty in the gifts list.

Thank you, Father, for Your many gifts. Thank You for showing them to me.

Help me to see more of them.

Help me to see the beauty in the messiness of life.

If you haven’t done so, consider joining via the web or private journals, Ann’s 1,000 Gifts journey.

#617-631

Until next time,

Photos: sky at the park near our house, overlooking Boulder, CO, rescued Tiger Swallowtail, buds from the first fruits of spring gardening, laundry sitting a top a 67 year old cedar chest (a gift and heirloom).