So much....

To be thankful for! My posts here lately have been a little on the... well, opinionated side! ;) I just thought I would balance it all out.....
I was reading somewhere recently, I think at A Holy Experience, about a Thanksgiving tradition.
It involved picking a verse of thanksgiving for the year, decorating a box with that verse, and then filling the box throughout the year with thoughts of thanksgiving and gratitude. The family contributes to the box as well as any guests who feel led. Sometimes people drop an offering of thanksgiving into the pot. At the end of the year (or the following Thanksgiving) all of the words of thanks and read aloud by the family. The coins are collected and put in as an offering to some charity or the church. Then the notes are burned as a tangible offering to God. Or least that's how I understood it.
What a beautiful tradition.
When we think of what we have to be thankful for every day it completely blows my mind.
God does not have to give me times of laughter amidst the struggles, but he does.
He does not have to wake me up with the song Jesus Loves Me as preformed by my 2 year old at the top of his lungs, but he does.
He does not have to let me find a pack of meat in the back of the freezer just when I thought it was all gone, but he does.
It's the little things. The hugs of a child, the sweet moments when everyone is getting along, the secret smile of my husband that lets me know he still loves me, the email from a friend to encourage... the little things.
Be thankful.

Be Blessed!