Today's weather is gray and rainy and dreary. I really didn't want to get bundled up and face the weather in order to go on my walk. But then I remembered seeing some flowering quince in a vacant lot on the way to the grocery store the other day. I slipped some kitchen shears and a plastic bag in my coat pocket and walked through the rain and slogged through the mud motivated to go walking by the thought of bringing some of those beautiful branches home with me.
Keeping a gratitude journal is definitely not the exclusive practice of someone whose life is nothing but perennial ease and happiness. It is most beneficial, in my opinion, in the life of those of us who sometimes struggle with weariness, heaviness and bouts of melancholy over the effects of sin in our world and in the lives of those we care about and have invested love and time in. Taking notice of and writing down God's blessings is similar to wading through the rain and mud of a dreary day in order to bring home some beauty. My eye spotted that flowering quince driving to the grocery store. My mind recorded that moment in my memory. Today, I made an effort to retrieve a physical piece of that memory and bring it home with me. Gratitude journaling is making the effort to pay attention to the beauty and the blessings sprinkled here and there throughout our ordinary and sometimes difficult days. We then make the effort to retrieve that beauty and record it by writing it down. We "bring home" the beauty and linger with it awhile there in the pages of our journal. It's our way of resistance, our way of fighting against the gray and the heaviness and the weariness, our way of choosing happiness.
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Since 2009 I've been counting my blessings thanks to the prompting of Ann Voskamp. I continue to count my thankspiling up gratitude day by day
in my journal.
(and capturing some of my blessings via my camera or iPhone)
#10,858-#10,880
3-19-18-
-beautiful spring like weather on this last day of winter
-tea and a good visit with a friend from church
-a safe day trip for my husband
3-20-18-
-the first day of Spring!
-the Lord very clearly leading me to Lamentations 3 when I woke up with my soul all disquieted
-the first strawberry shortcake of the year for our small group
3-21-18-
-Lamentations 3:21-26
-a fresh haircut and color
-youngest grandson very clearly saying "All done!"
3-22-18-
-puttering around the house and changing things here and there
-phone calls with my girls
-oldest grandson's first time shaving (Waaaaah!!!!!)
-God taking care of what I let go of
3-23-18-
-my hubs buying The Greatest Showman for us girls
-a really sweet morning prayer time
-a low key and relaxing day off
3-24-18-
-finishing the book of Exodus with She Reads Truth
-a brightly polished copper teakettle
-our middle grandson coming over for the afternoon
3-25-18-
-getting to know and support a missionary family
-God's provision
-a break in the weather enough for my husband to make a fire in the outdoor fire pit
still following,
A beautiful list of gratitudes, sweet lady.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Debbi!
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