Gratitude.


I have been keenly aware of a sense of gratitude lately. I don’t know where it’s coming from, exactly, but I experience it as a grace from God.

For example, yesterday at church when I went to communion, the person who gave me the cup was a friend, the husband of someone I sing in the choir with. He has battled lung cancer for several years now and honestly, there was a time when we never thought he’d be standing there, hale and healthy, in 2011. As he handed me the cup I just felt such a rush of gratitude that Geoff is still here to be a part of my life.

There was a day last week when I was feeling kind of out of sorts and grousing about how much I was having to run – activities every night but one, work all day, when does one catch a breath? Then I stopped and thought, “What am I saying? I was unemployed for two years, with w-a-a-y too much time sitting in this house. This busy-ness is all good!”

As the mother of an only child, I know I have a bit of a tendency to do the “helicopter mother” thing – I worry about his stuff way more than I should. I agonize over his successes and defeats, I fret about where he will go to college and how he will survive when he does. But lately I have had several occasions to just stop and appreciate that whatever peripheral things might concern me, at 17 ½ I can now see that he has turned out to be a young man of good character. I no longer have to worry about him making good decisions about the big things in life, because I can see that he is, essentially, a good person. WOW! Talk about your causes for gratitude!

So as I said, I don't really know what brought on this increased sense of gratitude, but I feel it is a great gift. Life experience suggests that in time, it will pass. I'll get distracted by other concerns and gratitude will fade to the background. But while it is here, for however long it lasts, I am going to enjoy it!