I drive backroads clear round a Great Lake, from the Ontario farm, around Lake Huron, to that jut of Michigan Thumb pointing skywards saying everything’s all rightward. Late at night I’m welcomed by good farmers with good souls.
And on the first day of May, the magnolia trees all in bloom, the petals flying generously in winds off that water, I stand in Michigan before a microphone and a gathering of farm families and fine folk to talk about what little I’ve stumbled into in this raising of half a dozen children.
But it’s the story of a four-year-old boy who lays me low. A boy who teaches me how to get up and live. I really have to wonder —– who parents who?
It’s Teren who carries the boy’s story to me, a gift. She comes finds me during Christian Parenting Day‘s lunch break, me ready to wander past the dessert table, when she offers a platter of sweet words and who really then needs cherry cheesecake, sauce all running down? I shake her hand — three times — so good to meet!
She says the day she decided she was done with reading blogs, the most intentional woman she knows, woman of grace who invited me to speak in Colorado last spring, sent her a link to this quiet place. We laugh. She says she’d told the Lord in January that that was to be her year to be more thankful. She didn’t know how or what to do but she prayed for God to show her how to be a woman of contentment. She found the Gratitude Community in February. We laugh.
I read her eyes, expressive sky of emotions, and she tells me about this journey God’s got her on. I like this, to listen to His story in real time, and I’m fed and I keep nodding, liking her.
She says she teaches a home-school preschooler co-op. She says she began counting 1000 gifts. She says she gave all her preschoolers their own gratitude journals. I swallow hard.
Last week she called four-year-old J. to come with his journal and she’d record more of his gifts for him. They sit down. She looks across the table at this little man.
“So, what are you thankful for today?” Teren asks J.
“I’m thankful that it’s not my birthday,” says J.
My eyebrows shoot high. Really?
“That’s exactly what I did when he said that,” Teren laughs, gorgeous sky. “So I clarified, ‘You don’t like birthdays, J?’” And J says, “I love birthdays. And I haven’t had one in a long time.”
Then why would he…. ?
Teren leans across the table to me and directly lays the little boy’s words into my hands.
“I’m saying thanks anyway.”
Lightning strikes. I break. Emotion brims, falls, rain watering hard ground in May.
I whisper repeat, “But I am saying thanks anyway.” And Teren nods, this liquid mix of tears and beautiful smile.
Anyway.
Is that it? You only know how to give thanks always when you know how to give thanks anyway. A child leads.
I leave a parenting conference and carry the child words back the less-traveled way, all around the water, passing the paint-peeling barn that reads, “Have Faith in God,” and I pray to make a life pointing upwards to a God who makes everything all rightward….
…. all moments thankful petals carried on wind.
giving thank anyway, #1541-#1553 of the endless gifts:
sore throat and fever still on a Monday
missing a friend this weekend, shard to the heart
ring of dirt in our bathtub
a garden not yet planted
piles of paperwork
flabby tummy
stain on favourite pants
splattered mirrors
dandelion lawn
messy garage
pounding headache
two over-due library books
that today is not my birthday and there are forever friends and good people who love the messy anyway and God came, laid back the thumb, took the nail and Grace holds us all, and what could now stop us from whispering thank anyway?….
Want to drink the joy elixir? Become a Joy Finder? Consider joining the Gratitude Community – just jump in with your own counting!
How to begin your own 1000 Gift List ::: How Gratitude Can Change your Life
( Drop me a line if choose to begin giving intentional thanks and gather fresh joy and I will happily add either your name or a web link to the Gratitude Community I’m slowly getting caught up on meeting all you beautiful folks who have joined the Gratitude Community. Thank you for your kind grace and patience! I’m so looking forward to meeting you all soon!)
If you’d like to share your endless list of Hallelujah! – (please, jump in!) — just add the direct URL to your specific 1000 gift list post… and if you join us, we humbly ask that you please help us find each other by sharing the community’s graphic within your post.
Photos: the backroads of Americana this weekend
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