When was the last time you remember stopping to savor the moment?

Yesterday in the fog. I just looked around and thought how beautiful everything was.

A few days ago on the way to work I noticed the water in a manmade lake and enjoyed it.

A couple of nights ago cuddling with R, I thought how grateful I was to have him. I told him and God so.

On most days are you more like the one leper who returned to thank Jesus or the nine who went on their way?

I think that most of us are more like the nine in that we are doing what he says and going forward and we don’t necessarily think we ought to go back and thank him. After all, he knows how grateful we are.

Also, I don’t think that people who are likely to go back and thank Jesus think they do it enough.

I don’t think I spend enough time telling God how much I appreciate him.

5 or 6 things I often take for granted:

My sons’ health. And I should know better since both of them were emergency Cs and one was without oxygen for eleven minutes.

R’s faithfulness and support. He’s always been there for me and he continues to be, twenty years in.

Ability to visit with my nieces and nephew. Not everyone lives close enough to visit their family.

My ability to see. R used to laugh at me “Miss 20-20.” Then he got lasik and had 15-20 and really laughed. But about a year ago I couldn’t see long distance as well as I used to. Now I wear glasses. I thank God that I can see. But I should thank him more often.

Living in the US, where we have freedoms unknown to most of the world. Free to worship God without fear. Free to say what we believe. Free to gather together. Free from random acts of government violence. Free to protect ourselves. Free to educate our children. It is amazing how often I take that for granted. One of my students wrote a definition/illustration paper on luxury one time and she wrote about freedom as a luxury. I hadn’t every really thought of it that way before. But now every semester when I teach that paper, I think about my freedoms and thank God.

Working cars, a nice house, pretty clothes, and more shoes than I need. I remember being without those things, but I still take them too much for granted.