on beginning the count again

That crazy busy work time that stole my life away took the counting right out of me, too.

Gratefully, it couldn’t steal my gratitude. Having long since reached the first thousand gifts counted, and being forever changed in the process, no small amount of weeks, even months, could turn me away from a heart of gratitude. God was so gracious to me during those long hours bent over printouts and squinting eyes at two monitors to make the new reconcile with the old. I lived those weeks with more thanksgiving than complaining, more hopefulness than dread.

Yet, there was one day, near the end, when weariness threatened to overcome, that I found myself in a dark place. It was counting that lifted me. Just a few moments in the day to stop and notice the little gifts once again:

• my man being especially attentive on a difficult day
• the strength of our home when gusty winds blow
• how counting quiets my restless heart

There is always time for gratitude and new beginnings. – J. Robert Moskin

The numbers-girl in me finds it crazy delightful that not only did a new year dawn to provide a welcome entry back into an old, wonderful habit, but that the last of the counting has led me to begin with a #1, as in #1201. So I shall celebrate it with counting it as a gift of its own.

#1201 – beginning again with a #1

#1202 – beginning a new year of daily bible reading with a new HCSB Study Bible

#1203 – habits that don’t fizzle out a few weeks into a new year

#1204 – filing, organizing, budgeting

#1205 – mending my daughter’s shirt. With a sewing machine! I even threaded the bobbin.

#1206 – easing back into things with a short work week

#1207 – uncommonly warm weather

#1208 – running through the snow-less grass in my slippers to capture the beauty of a sunrise

#1209 – opening the window in January

#1210 – running barefooted to the mailbox (in January!)

#1211 – a day that ended as beautifully as it began, with the artful hand of God

#1212 – fire in the sky

#1213 – laughing over the sled on the front porch that seemed so appropriate when visions of snow danced in our heads, yet seems utterly silly with the sheer lack of it

#1214 – late night chats with a special girl

#1215 – lessons learned and hearts mended

#1216 – sleeping in on a Saturday

#1217 – snuggling up with my man after steering clear for a week so as not to give him my cold

#1218 – cough syrup and cough drops

#1219 – girls giggling

#1220 – determination to enjoy a ride on the sled

#1221 – my iPhone

#1222 - instagram (Don’t have Instagram? You are welcome to scroll all the way down and to the right to view my Instagram pics, many of which will end up in posts. Click on them and they will enlarge for you.)

#1223 – chocolate ice cream

#1224 – home alone on a non-work day

#1225 – cranking up the music

In hope,
Shelli

This post is linked with the Gratitude Community at Holy Experience
as I share my list of One Thousand Gifts.