Gratitude in September

grat·i·tude

ˈɡradəˌt(y)o͞od/

noun

1. the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

   "she expressed her gratitude to the committee for their support"

   synonyms:

   gratefulness, thankfulness, thanks, appreciation, indebtedness;

I'm grateful for friends.

Furry friends with velvet antlers

People friends with empathy and understanding and wisdom

I'm grateful for mini me's and mini him's

I'm grateful for style, for class - for authenticity, 

I'm thankful for anything that is genuine and so so real.

I adore real.

I'm thankful for truth, for knowing.

I'm grateful for sleepy skies and playful lakes

white sails slipping behind a wispy blanket

I'm thankful for fresh air

For oxygen 

For deep reassuring breaths

I'm thankful for "constant"

I'm thankful for touch

For the occasional hug (not to much if you please)

I'm thankful for selfies that don't have to be posted anywhere but here, 

in my web space

I'm thankful for the millions of pictures that I will forever hold

in my mind. Just for me, unshared. 

I'm thankful for my eyes, for life's pictures.

I'm thankful for memories

The good, the bad, and ugly...

because, you see, the formed me.

I'm thankful that it's almost fall,

and that's it okay to pretend it already is.

I'm thankful for beauty and the ability to surround myself with what I love

pinecones and flowers and candles

acorns and twine and muted colors

Thank You so much Father for colors.

Thank you for sweet babies...almost grown but still needing me.

Thank You for grace for all of my shortcomings and letting me grow, showing me how to do better, showing me that I don't have to be perfect to love and to be loved.

Thank you for little hands that want to hold my not- so- big hand.

Thank you for dimples and elbows and soft hair.

Thank you for creativity, for pictures, for paint.

Thank you that I don't have to know what I'm doing to be able to delight in something that I enjoy.

Thank you for eyes wide open

open to everything

Thank you for watching me, in secret...so that I'm not alone...even when I am.

thank You again for trees

thank you again for flowers

thank you again for grasshoppers and bird song

and fluttering leaves

Thank you for open arms

reaching high and dancing beneath your Light

being filled with the Light

glowing with it, shimmering, magnetic

beautiful beautiful Light.

Thank You for texture.

Thank You for differences,

smooth and rough and soft and hard 

edgy and plain

simple, diverse

straight and curvy and still and flowing.

Thank you that my job is to worship ... what an amazing job. 

To be filled with song, to be filled with Spirit, to dance through life

knowing that you smile at my fumbled up clumsy steps.

Knowing that Your eyes sparkle when you see me,

knowing that I can run to you and be lifted up and carried

thank You for who You are. 

Thank you for who I am. 

Thank you. 

Psalm 139:7-18New International Version (NIV)

7 

Where can I go from your Spirit?

    Where can I flee from your presence?

8 

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9 

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

    if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 

even there your hand will guide me,

    your right hand will hold me fast.

11 

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

    and the light become night around me,”

12 

even the darkness will not be dark to you;

    the night will shine like the day,

    for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ 

For you created my inmost being;

    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

¹⁴ 

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

    your works are wonderful,

    I know that full well.

¹⁵ 

My frame was not hidden from you

    when I was made in the secret place,

    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

¹⁶ 

Your eyes saw my unformed body;

    all the days ordained for me were written in your book

    before one of them came to be.

¹⁷ 

How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!

    How vast is the sum of them!

¹⁸ 

Were I to count them,

    they would outnumber the grains of sand—

    when I awake, I am still with you.