I am grateful for the comfort of a jacket on a cool and rainy day.
I am grateful for how some time in sun uplifts my day.
I am grateful for how strangers are polite and even give good advice, or offer a prayer.
I am grateful for how authority figures (cops, paramedics, professors, etc.) are genuinely loving people-- outside of the profession. I am grateful for those who can afford to keep me employed. I am grateful for small talks and lengthier ones.
I am grateful for how musical notes can harmonize in a heavenly way. I am grateful for discord, how it can capture the angst I may feel. I am grateful for bursts of can-do attitude that causes my regular optimism to seem self-limiting (because it is).
I am grateful for the diversity found across the world-- and how people of these various backgrounds will worship God together, in the name of Jesus. I am grateful for the hope that God gives in every chapter of life. Sometimes it is hard to sense, but God is there. I am grateful for His Word and how He speaks and has spoken. I am grateful for family-- biological and otherwise. I am grateful for how God redeems and adopts, how He calls His sheep... and they hear His voice.
I am grateful for the countless days that people prayed for me when I was a child-- and even now. I am grateful for creative opportunities to serve God and to praise His Holy Name. I am thankful for exercise, that I have known it as a team member and as an individual needing to build muscle. I am grateful for how God reconciles-- and how His Ways are Higher than mine.
I am grateful for Christ's endurance and commitment-- not only to the cross, but to kick Satan's butt. I am grateful for kids who have greater faith, greater love, and greater hope than I have ever had. And I am grateful that many of my peers are still growing in the Lord. I am grateful for a man who confessed is financial troubles and a low point in his life-- and how he and I could share together our troubles and yet rejoice in the Lord's Provision. I am grateful for now, this moment. That, instead of worrying about tomorrow... I share a little bit of praise with someone who will benefit from reading something here. I am grateful for how God uses me, but I am also for when God has not used me-- for when He has pruned, discipline, withheld-- because it was the Right thing to do. I am so grateful that God still works on me. But I am just as grateful that He's Working on you, too.
God bless you. And thank Him for it.
--IDEA