Gratitude Wins

Hostitility - having people over, but being really mean to them.

This was our new vocab word for the day following Joseph misreading "hostility" in the Bible. Granted, he was having a tough time keeping a straight face because 12-year-old boys sometimes struggle with reading about circumcision in the Bible and that word kept showing up in today's passage.

Joseph met pi today for the first time. I have no Greek characters in my blog. I'm referring to that lovely little Greek letter that translates into 3.14159 etc. in a math book. He is not impressed with x's and y's, so pi did not exactly win his heart, especially when I told him it goes on forever, so we just use an estimate. Honestly, I don't remember meeting pi until later in school, but then sometimes I don't remember what I did this morning or what my own children's birthdates are or if I'm wearing deoderant. How odd to remember so much about pi, so many fond memories of my math days, yet be unable to remember what I need in the kitchen by the time I walk in there from the living room.

Gratitude has not been flowing out of me this month. I continue my long-time discipline of intentionally looking for ways to thank God for something every day, but it has not come easily. This time of year seems to squash down gratitude, rather than encourage it. I am having to look hard, think hard, pay attention. It's there, though. God's goodness in the land of the living. Every day.

Confession. Right here, right now. Here we go. I was ready to type several paragraphs about specific reasons why gratitude has been hard. I wasn't just ready, I typed them. I re-read them. Yuck. Just yuck. Ugly. I deleted them. Right after I deleted them, I remembered a huge point of gratitude from yesterday.

Our church had its annual Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. I got to contribute to the gluten-free spread. It was definitely on my list of things to be grateful for as I watched a fair-sized crowd of those in our church body who cannot eat gluten, just beaming and loading up their plates. Most likely, every gluten-free person who came was planning to nibble a bit of salad and hope for a random GF dessert. Seeing the smiles, especially on my son, really made my night. To top it off, he got an entire take-home container of GF pumpkin bars that a friend of mine insisted he take home.

So in a blog where I told myself I was going to be honest (as in showcase a little discontent, a little whine, a little "poor me"), I got my behind ever so lovingly kicked by gratitude.

Gratitude wins today.