Thankful

 

 

Today I am thankful.  It’s the random things in life that make me most aware of God’s provision in my life, today is a day full of that randomness and blessing.

I had a job interview today for a great company, Naturally Clean, a residential cleaning company that uses only natural and organic materials to clean people’s homes.  As I met with her, I was left feeling excited about a new opportunity.  

Truth be told, it makes me feel like a bit of a hypocrite because my house is not tidy, it’s clean but certainly not tidy.  I often say I feel like Mr. Incredible from the movie “The Incredibles”…”I just cleaned up this mess, can’t you keep it clean for 5 minutes?!”.  But I love a clean and tidy house.  When we lived in Meaford and our kids were younger, we had someone in to clean our house and I remember what a great feel it was to come home to the fresh clean smell and look of our home.  I love that I get to provide that for someone else.

Then later on Justus and I headed out to Walmart.  He needed his glasses fixed and we decided we’d grab a pizza for supper.  (Please remind me to NEVER go to Walmart at 4 PM on a Saturday.)  Thankfully the glasses were fixed in no time and we were headed off to grab the pizza.  Justus took the one he wanted off the shelf and we were off to wait in line, for a very long time, it was at least 20 minutes that we stood there and waited.  Can I just say it’s really unfair to kids (and parents) to have candy in the checkout aisles? I listened to Justus ask and ask for candy and tried best to explain that we just didn’t have the money for that this week.  I’m not against buying him something when he’s been as good as he had been at the store, but the truth is we don’t have the extra cash for much these days.  

The woman in front of us must’ve heard our conversations because as she was checking out she had taken a kinder surprise egg off the shelf and paid for it.  As she was leaving she turned around and handed it to Justus and commended him for being such a great well-behaved boy.  Ya I know, it’s a dollar but I got choked up none the less.  She showed such kindness and Justus knew it, she touched his soul.  He even shared his egg with the family and didn’t take it all for himself.  

The photo above is of my “Jar of Blessing”.  I saw the idea posted on Facebook from Pinterest.  I knew it was something I had to do.  I get so focused on what I think God isn’t doing for us that I lose sight of the “little” things and not so little things that God provides.  This jar has helped me focus and be more aware of the provisions in our life, to be thankful for all that has been provided for us.  

Here we are 5 days into the year and already my jar has a lot of papers inside, enough that I really don’t think that there will be enough room for the 360 days left in the year.  I’m already excited to look through them all next New Year’s Eve.  I can’t imagine how overwhelming and inspiring it will be.  I’m thinking of compiling them into some sort of project, whether it’s writing or some other sort of art type project but I know that I will want to acknowledge this year in some way.