Gratitude

There are SO MANY blog post topics floating around in my head.  It’s been like this for quite some time.  Yet, I’ve been scattered, and physically not up to writing.  Still, when I think of all those topics, they really just boil down to is a sense of immense gratitude.

I am so very blessed.

I finished teaching a parenting class at our county jail today.  One woman completed the entire course.  She’s had a rough life up until now.  Some of the scars show.  Some of the walls she’s had to build up over time are still there.  But oh, what a beautiful person shines out from inside.  She WANTS to do well.  She is smart.  She’ll make it.  God, I want her to make it.  She has taught me so much.  This is the gift of teaching – you learn when you teach.

I am grateful for the lessons along this journey.  Some were fun and exciting.  Some were terribly painful.  Oh, how I’ve learned!

Will you count your blessings today?  Mine are so many.  I will begin with my sweet husband and my children (Oldest Son and his wife, The Teacher, our sons, Computer Man, The Actor, The Song Writer, Youngest Son and, of course, The Princess).  I am grateful for a home, for my needs met, for an opportunity to keep learning, and for the spiritual gift of teaching.  I am grateful that God sends people to me everywhere I go -- folks who chose me to tell their life story to, though I do not understand why they do this.  I am grateful for loving friends – those I have and those I’ve lost.  I am grateful for a heritage of faith and generations of mothers before me who poured that faith into their children.  They have a remnant in me and my kids.

I am grateful for the blessing of adoption – for the struggle before it and the fight during it.  It has changed my life and the way I view the world.  I am grateful for the things I’ve had to learn because of adoption, and for the ability to pass some of that along to others.  I am especially grateful to those who went before me and were patient with me while I learned – while I still learn.

I am grateful for sunshine as well as for rain.  I am even grateful for “fertilizer” because it, together with the rain and the sunshine, help me grow.

I am especially grateful to God. 

  “You’re blessed when you get your inside world – your mind and heart – put right. Then you can see God in the outside world” (Matthew 5:8, MSG).