Thankful

I have seen several people do "thankful" posts before, and I always appreciate the way it puts the world in a different perspective.  There is so much bad and negative in the world, that it is just refreshing sometimes to reflect on the small things in life that make life worthwhile.  This is not the "obligatory Thanksgiving post", it just happened to come around Thanksgiving by chance. 

Two days ago, it was early afternoon and I was driving to a Primary meeting, it was quiet and I had a little time to think.  I just felt this overwhelming feeling of gratitude.  As I drove, I was touched by the feelings I had, and I really wanted to write a post about them.


As I reflected upon why I felt this way, I remembered several small, seemingly insignificant things that had happened that morning, and each had added to my feeling of thankfulness. 
 
1) I was planning to send several Christmas packages that morning to loved ones.  As I was packing them, I had time to think about these individual's positive influence in my life.  Two of the packages were for our grandmas (my grandma and Eric's grandma)...it just made me contemplate the good lives that they have lived and the generations that these good women have had influence upon.

2) When Jarem and I got to the post office, Jarem wanted to help me, so he held the doors open while I carried the packages inside.  It was a hard job for him to hold those heavy doors, but he was happy to do something to help.  It warmed my heart to see my little boy learning to be a gentleman.

3) I had a large box and several small boxes.  As I waited in line at the post office, I slid the boxes along the counter.  When I was up and the next cashier was available, an older gentleman behind me was already lifting my boxes and ready to carry them to the counter for me.  Although I declined his offer because they really weren't that heavy, it was very touching for me to see this older man waiting for the moment to help me, a stranger, with some packages.  And the ironic part was, I was probably much more able than he.  But, that did not stop him.  His sense of hospitality and respect for women caused him to truly want to help me.  I wondered later if I should have allowed him to do it just because I know it would have made him feel good.  No doubt, he had been thinking of picking up those boxes for me the whole time we were waiting in line.  Though it seems like a small thing, it was meaningful to me.

(4) When I came back home, I got on facebook and I noticed that Alex had posted a list of "25 things".  For those of you who are not familiar with facebook, a lot of people make lists of "25 things people may not know about them".  Alex had made this list a few months back, but since I don't get on facebook often, I hadn't seen it.  I opened it up, and one of his 25 things was, "I love my mom".  I almost cried....not because I didn't know that he loves me, but because it was just touching to me that that was one of the 25 things he chose to include for all of his friends to see.  Not only that, but with teenagers, sometimes they don't always show their love openly, so it was sweet.  Along those same lines, last week as he was getting on the bus, Alex told me to look on the table when I got home.  While he was eating breakfast, he had arranged some beads that I was using for making necklaces into the words, "I love you" (picture below). Its things like this that remind me he really does have a sensitive side when I get frustrated with him.

(5) Later on, my neighbor came to the door.  When I opened the door, I noticed that the company who put in our sprinkler system was winterizing our sprinklers and blowing the water from the pipes in each zone.  I have kept a letter on my desk about winterizing my sprinkler system for the past month, but hadn't wanted to pay the $75 to get it done.  The company that puts the sprinklers in does the first winterization and spring start-up for free, but we've already lived here a year and had both done once. And here they were doing the maintenance for free!

I was so happy that I didn't have to worry about paying the $75 to get that done at Christmas-time.  As I was talking to my neighbor and friend, she pointed out how fortunate we are to have a builder who takes care of us and goes the extra mile to be sure our needs are met.  Her builder has been "unavailable" for months now.  It made me full of gratitude once again for the way our builders have treated us, and how they have taken care of EVERYTHING we've been concerned about and gone above and beyond.  For example, we had a drainage problem in the backyard this past spring, and they not only fixed the problem, but offered to sod the area that they would be digging up for the inconvenience.  This was an area that was seeded before and hadn't grown well...  Although we did do some research on builders in the beginning, I feel like we were directed to these guys through a lot of prayer, and I'm thankful for the good and honest people that they are.

These are only a very few of the things that I am thankful for, but things that I felt thankful for on that day.

Remember that I was driving while pondering on all of this...well, while I was engrossed in my thoughts, I actually made two wrong turns...you know how you get set on auto-pilot sometimes when you are not thinking about where you are going.  Anyway, I eventually made it to the meeting feeling very grateful for many things.