because they're pure joy

and because rachel said so

already!

it only took me until 10:30am today to be breathtakingly grateful--never mind that it took me another twelve hours to find time to sit down and record it. i stepped out my door this morning, and the smell was the undeniable, earthy, damp, sun-streaked, crisp-aired perfection of fall. already! and i was already grateful, even at 10:30am. and it was that attentiveness to gratitude, first step out the door, that carried me through the rest of a day that was hard pressed to provide anything to be grateful for. fall in my nostrils--the promise of end, death that will bring something new. the promise of end. i'm already grateful. and eager to step out the door again tomorrow.

wagon wheels

having fallen off the gratitude wagon these last ahem-many days, i guess i should be most of all grateful for grace that covers this one-among-many failures. and come to think of it, i should be most of all thankful for grace everyday, which makes me thankful for having fallen off the wagon so i could learn that lesson. grace. i am also thankful so thankful for seven-month-old baby hugs. anastasia's new post-nap greeting is an honest-to-goodness hug, arms around my neck. and even better, after about ten seconds, she leans back, smiles at me for a few seconds, and then dives back in for another good long hug. it is about The Best Thing i can imagine. luke will certainly want to stall bedtime momentarily by thinkingthinkingthinking about what he's thankful for; i suppose i can be glad for that stalling tactic among many possibilities. and i'll be thinking about why it's so easy to be impatient and frustrated and grumpy and tired and whiny and even funny...but so hard to remember the simple gift of gratitude. i'll be thinking about it. (and the title? well, wagon wheels are one of anastasia's favorite snacks these days. yes, i'm thankful to have made it to the finger food stage...but mostly that's just where my mommy-mind goes when i think of having fallen off the gratitude wagon. it goes something like this: fallen off the wagon -- wagon wheels -- snacks all over the floor -- i need to go sweep. or something like that. nothing profound, i'm afraid. not these days.)

reflected

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I also am known. --1 corinthians 13:12

anastasia thoroughly enjoys looking at herself in this little mirror (or, to be honest, in any mirror, window, or other reflective surface she can find). i knew i wanted to take a picture of her admiring herself in the mirror, capturing both her sweet little pig nose and the patchy soft hair on the back of her head all at once. i knew the picture i wanted to take. this is the picture i took--which i love, and which is not exactly the picture i wanted to take. thankfully, anastasia spends quite a bit of time looking in this mirror, as it took me two sessions and over two dozen pictures to capture this moment. the moment which wasn't exactly the moment i was going for, but is just right anyhow.

and that is, in fact, the point. seeing through a glass darkly. not quite accurately. we can't quite know what we're looking for in that dark glass, can we? but it's in there. and i am certain we're supposed to look. now i know in part and not fully, as i will know and be known. but i do know in part, and that's important. i'm not sure what babies are doing when they're spending all that time admiring themselves (and, let's be honest, slobbering all over themselves, which is part of the picture i meant to capture but didn't quite). but i know there's something in there they want to understand, and they are persistent in trying to understand it. it will likely still be a few months before anastasia recognizes herself in that reflection, although she does already seem to look back and forth at the reflection when i'm holding her, looking at me and then looking back at the reflection of me. even though she doesn't understand what's in there--in fact, probably because she doesn't--she keeps looking and looking. and she delights in the learning and looking and figuring out.

we can learn a lot from a baby examining that other baby in the dark glass. just because we won't know and be known for a long time, just because we are trapped with the dark glass through which to look, it doesn't mean we don't keep looking. we keep seeking and trying to understand. and we delight in the process, even though we know it'll be long before it's complete. and when we're frustrated by the process--which babies often are--we don't cease wondering and we don't decide we're done looking. we can rest in the promise that--just like anastasia will one day (too) soon discover that she's admiring herself in there--we will one day know and be known fully, with no glass in the way at all.

but in the meantime, i'm determined to rejoice in and persist in examining the (skewed, unclear) reflection.

thinking hard

that's the whole point of this exercise, right? finding things to be thankful about on the days when it's really hard to be thankful? well, i'm getting my workout, then, and it's working.

luke is thankful for so many things to be thankful for. (i think that's a copout, but i let him get away with it, primarily because it was bedtime and he'll do anything to stall...even if it is think about things to be thankful for.)

i'm thankful for chubby seven-month-old fingers that play and dance in the air, the sunshine through the window, the shadows on the wall. seven months tomorrow. thankful for every single day.

can you guess where we went today?

luke is thankful for bumper cars. i'm thankful for deep fried oreos.

but i'm most of all thankful that the state fair happens only once a year. because it's really not my thing...even though, as it turns out, deep fried oreos really are my thing.

between gratitude and gripe

the line is fuzzy sometimes, i think. tonight, it's a good thing i'm committed to this gratitude work. because it's work tonight, for sure.

"Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" (job 2:10)

today, i found myself thinking, how can i be so troubled by my little problems when there's so much worse going on in the world? how can i lose sleep over my losses when people are suffering so much more than i am? how can i lament my circumstances when others' are so much more dire? i have it so good, really, compared to so many.

i have answered this question for others so many times, so many friends who have followed a lament about their own lives immediately with, "oh, i'm sorry; how can i even complain to you when you've been through so much worse?" the answer i've always given is that there's no comparing griefs. your suffering, your own worst thing, is in fact your own worst thing. it doesn't matter if my worst thing is in some quantifiable way (if that even exists) worse than yours, or if someone else's worst thing is ten times worse. your suffering is pure and absolute in the midst of your own worst thing, and it does you no good to try to diminish it by comparing it with someone else's: it's bad, and it's yours, and it's suffering. that's all you can really know as you experience it, and comparison is futile. it's the same reason that, when luke says, "i'm starving!" i don't follow my no-you're-not answer with but-children-in-ethiopia-are-and-they-have-it-so-much-worse. no, luke isn't starving, and it's good to be careful with our words and make sure we mean what we say. but his own hunger is his own experience of "suffering," and to attempt to diminish that by comparison with someone else's actual starvation is something he can neither access nor profit from: he's still hungry, he's still suffering, and now perhaps he's feeling shame, too. this isn't helpful.

anyhow, as i shamed myself for my lament this morning, i was glad to remember my own answer to others: comparisons are useless. your suffering is bad, it's yours, and that's all there is to it.

but why are the gripes so much easier to come by than is gratitude? sometimes, i think, it's a fine line. sometimes, i think, there's a reason we can't decide whether to laugh or cry. sometimes, i think, the very thing that brings us the most joy can bring us equally the most pain.


today, i'm grateful for clear thinking. thinking about painful things clearly. the lines are fuzzy.

i won't open that tossed-aside card from who-knows-what joyful occasion addressed to the nickname no one knows that i found yesterday. not now. fuzzy and fine.