grateful heart

It is so easy to lose sight of what is important:to let the dreary weather,chest congestion, cold fingers and feet become the the focus of much fruitless musing.I know that a grateful heart is a happy heart but why does this wisdom hide behind the next corner,out of sight so often.How can I hang on to gratitude and praying without ceasing ?Prayer has value,worrying does not.

Within the last several weeks many mysterious and good things have happened.So I want to focus on these tonight and indulge in metanoia, a turning from where I have been.

I bought a wonderful painting a few weeks ago that jumped into my hands and insisted I take it home.It has a scripture verse,snow,a small tan dog and colorful angels hovering in the trees.If you have read my blog you know that God has ,in my view, used snowy trees, angels and a tan dog to speak to me.As if this God revealing painting isn't enough, I have met the artist,who just happens to live in Georgia, in cyber space,thanked her for her gift and basked in the kindness of her e-mails.A new friend and a blessing.

The other day, my son took his eight year old daughter to a Father-Daughter dance at her school.He ,looking like a movie star with a great suit,silk tie,she in a red dress and fixed curly blond hair.On the way home,she thanked him for a lovely evening. How blessed to see how much he invests in his fatherhood.She will never forget her first Valentine dance.

In January, I had lunch with a high school friend that I had really liked but we had lost touch.I think I laughed more with her than anyone.She was humble,smart and a bright spot for me in my senior year.After fifty years, we embraced with tears and laughter.We had lunch and deeply,deeply connected.It was not an accident, but the Spirit who arranged this meeting as just another great gift to me.

I have faithful friends who never fail to encourage my writing and without them, I would have folded up the artist tent in the beginning.They take the time to read my stories and never a discouraging word.There is no price that I can put on that support.

In January,my husband and I went to his Army reunion and there I connected again with one of his buddies who had made me howl with laughter at the one we attended in Atlanta,fifteen years before.This time we shared our faith and that usually lifts me a few feet off the ground. He is my friend and I look forward to seeing him again.He does woodworking as a hobby, and I can see him in his shop in Indiana,bent over his lathe, planing wood for a table and praying as he works.That scene pleases me.

How delighted we would be if these things were our focus.Gratitude for sight and the colors of Van Gogh.Hearing;the sound of a baby laughing on YouTube.Children and talking to them on the phone about important things.Family;a sister-in-law who turns seventy soon, who has always,always made me feel welcomed in my husband's family for 46 years.The list is endless,it goes out into the firmament,if we think of it.

This must be God's biggest disappointment.He gives us wonders in abundance for our happiness but if we don't see them,focus on them in thanksgiving, they are wasted.This must be why scripture enjoins us not to worry.Fear and worry drop a veil over the wonders and they might as well not have happened.

What have you stopped being grateful for or have forgotten?Please let me know.