thankful . so thankful

nothing makes you feel worse than going to the doctor for your coughing daughter, to hear that she has a double ear infection, and one side is really really bad... you feel like a bad mom [for a minute], until you remember your child is not even two, so she's not great at communicating that her ears hurt. and she's generally happy, so i had no idea she was in that much pain. i just thought she wanted to cuddle because she had a cold and cough.

poor thing. but these are the times that i'm so thankful for modern medicine, in the form of antibiotics. so, so thankful. i wonder what people did when there were no antibiotics? surely they got bacterial infections? did they use natural remedies? did they even know the difference between viral vs. bacterial infections, to know which remedy to apply? did they just die, like, all the time, from basic ear infections? this is something i'd love to research. it's that history degree i earned, begging to be useful, i guess.

anyway, i've been reading Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts, and have started my list [of gifts, things i'm thankful for]. though i am generally anti-medicine, antibiotics definitely made that list. you guys: YOU HAVE TO READ this book. it has truly started a revolution of gratitude, as Ann wrote on her blog yesterday:

Outside of comfort’s warmth, gifts unfurling underneath, and signs of radical change emerging everywhere, winter being overturned, of eucharisteo in the midst of hard things, of a revolution of thanks in all things to the God over all things.

And I have seen it, felt it in me, seen it move out into the world, this week One Thousand Gifts #15 on the New York Time’s Best Seller’s list, only the Spirit moving, a movement of people moving out and finding ecstatic joy, of people counting and making celebration a way of life, eucharisteo this old new word for a new way of living, that regardless of life’s ups and downs, there moves this solid current of unending grace… certain joy.

what i love most about her book so far, is that she gives you a very practical and simple way to begin a journey toward true joy. it's not just her experience, or a bunch of abstract ideas, or something you have to really sit and think about, hoping you'll be able to apply to your life... you DO it, you just start writing down the gifts, and then watch as God transforms your heart.

what i've been learning since i started: it has to be a daily thing, because we humans are so forgetful. what we learned yesterday, somehow escapes us tomorrow when we need it. what was yesterday a gift, becomes tomorrow a nuisance or an entitlement. we need His grace, His gifts, every morning... and every afternoon, and every evening. we need Him every hour, really. [or maybe that's just me?] if we need it every hour, we have to seek it out every hour, in the smallest and simplest ways.


some of the things on my list so far:
#6. a shelf of books. some read, some started, some waiting. all full of wisdom.
#9. fresh vacuum lines, and the husband who creates them near daily.
#18. the realization that He is truly setting me FREE, from so many strongholds, so many old ways.
#24. those tiny white flowers budding on the tree, a promise.
#29. warm showers. daily. a luxury i take for granted.
#31. a refrigerator full of food. again, a luxury.
#36. sparkling clean water, whenever i want it.
#48. a bowl full of tangerines, and more where that came from:

[i'm a litle late to the link party. double ear infections, remember?]