Eucharisteo

Today, I am grateful...

1. spring rain's clean scent
2. baby girls falling asleep peacefully on living room pillows
3. sisters holding hands
4. helping hands at the grocery store
5. generosity of neighbors
6. plants growing from seeds pushed into dirt by tiny hands
7. sudden, silent snuggles from my middle daughter
8. white chocolate mocha creamer in my half-caff coffee
9. text messages from dear friends
10. ability to lift up prayers for my friends

Big and small, elaborate and mundane, clearly spiritual and seemingly inconsequential - my life is littered with gifts of grace from my Father.

It seems easier, in these days of the constancy of caring for small children, easier to complain, to notice the pain and the hardship and the lack. I can't help but wonder - if it's really easier, why does everything weigh so heavily?

And so, I am seeking them out - naming the gifts, pausing to think on them, and marveling at the intricacies of this world, created by Him who holds all things together. Not that the hard, painful, lonely things cease to exist - but that they are swimming in an ocean of good gifts, things to which I can cling and remain afloat as waves crash around me.

It is all grace, all a gift.