I know it’s not Thanksgiving, but this week I was thinking about how much I have to be grateful for. Besides, Thanksgiving isn’t the only time I can be grateful for the abundance in my life.
In particular, I was thinking about how it is such an immense blessing to be healthy. My family members were dropping left and right to a cold and sore throat last week, yet somehow, I have thus far emerged unscathed. I woke up with a slight hint of a sore throat one morning, but after a hefty dose of oregano oil, prayer and worship music, I’m still right as rain. Funny how that works… But the blessing it is to be able to breathe through my nose!
Every time I’m sick and stuffed up, I think, “I’m never going to undervalue the ability to breath ever again!” Then I get better and forget how terrible it is to know you’re snoring, to be unable to chew for too long without gasping in a breath through your mouth… So this week I’ve been inhaling deeply through the nose, and swallowing randomly, enjoying the lack of kitchen knives in my throat.
It’s so easy to only appreciate something once it’s gone. The ability to breathe easy, to swallow without pain, to stand up without nearly toppling over because of a raging headache. But there are so many things to be thankful for. Health. Life. Family. My church. Even in a season where I feel like I’m hard-pressed to balance my life, with a new semester of school and an extra class and work and teaching a couple girls piano and friends and God and writing. There’s a lot to do, and it sometimes feels like very little time to do it. Just sitting here contemplating that, I remembered I have a social paper to finish when I get home… Life is busy! But there is so, so, so, so much to be thankful for. A job. The ability to learn. A relationship with God. Good friends who are here to support me. An idea for my future.
So I should dwell on that, which brings me to my encouragement: appreciate a small thing this week. A good conversation. A productive day. An encouraging verse of Scripture. A good laugh. An impromptu candlelit writing session at 10pm. (There’s so much scope for the imagination!) The small things give so much perspective for how good our God is.
Because He is.
