Gratitude Journal…Rounding the Bend

Erica Hale Faith, Family, Fostering , 3 Comments
Gratitude Journal…Rounding the Bend
It’s been too long since I counted the daily joys, and there were so many days of treading water and fighting the current just to keep my head above water that things seemed to fade and blend into one big, long blur.  So I’m doing my best to paddle back to shore, or at least grab onto a good-sized piece of driftwood and just hang on and let the river take me to wherever its going.  There has been so much flowing through, a fullness of life that is at once joyful and overwhelming and there has been heartache and grief and there has been beauty and grace and there has been so…much…of everything that it’s hard to know just where to start.  The last 12 months have brought so much change that I feel like mentally I’ve moved houses, and am standing there in the living room surrounded by stacks of boxes, wondering which one to open first.  And looking around, there are so many and they all look just as urgent and wow, where is all this stuff going to go, anyway?  And I guess you just do the thing that you always end up doing when the job looks so big and you feel so small, you just trust God that He’s got a vision for the end of the project and you get started on the one little thing that’s right in front of you. And then you remember that one thing you really have always enjoyed is unpacking in a new house, finding a place for everything and making it look like home, or at least as close to that as we can get.
Counting the blessings in the crazy last year-or-so….
531. For the Boys, our time with them and
532. How they became a part of our family
533. For their mother and all she taught me
534. For what I learned through fighting to help her

535. For what she taught me about life
536. For how my eyes were opened (and yes, even when I wanted to close them again)
537. For how being a family of 7 stretched and grew us
538. For how our church family rallied and surrounded us with help and support
539. For the strength I found that I never knew I had

540. For the need to move houses, for our children growing and our call to be close to church
541. For the years when we drove 1/2 hour each way…Hubby to work daily, then the family to band practice, youth group, small group, men’s and ladies meetings
542. For the months of searching for a new house, closer to everything…loading up diaper bag and infant car seat and seeing so many different possibilities
543. For our new home
544. For renters for our old house and the ones in the cottage, even the
545. Renters who caused us months of headache and finally left the place trashed
546. Because we learned a lot through that that will serve us well in the future

547. For Hubby being offered a new job
548. For the studying for another round of tests for his career
549. For the good timing through all of that
550. For the weeks of working on the Alive album
551. For the time Hubby had with fellow musicians working on a Worship album/concert
551. For the time I had at home with the 5 kids during that time, how hard and how good it was
552. For how it made me appreciate not being a single mom
553. Especially when the rain hit and the roof leaked (but it was easier than we thought to fix)
554. For when we packed up all five of them and went to visit Hubby and stood in the back with the stroller and just listened to the music fill us up

I thought I could finish up that crazy year in one post and I was wrong….so I guess I’ll continue next week.  Actually, maybe the week after that, too.







3 thoughts on “Gratitude Journal…Rounding the Bend”

  • Kelly Hallahan
    September 10, 2012 at 3:47 pm
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    Great list today! And it’s so true- we have to cling to God through gratitude if we want to survive! Blessings to you from Uganda!

    Reply
  • redemptionsbeauty
    September 10, 2012 at 4:37 pm
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    What a lovely list and it sounds like you have walked through a year of transformative transition. Love the last photo of the wet pup. So sweet.

    Reply
  • SimplyDarlene
    September 11, 2012 at 8:40 pm
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    and for friends, online, although not hand-held, but heart-held who hold one another up and know we are sisters by God’s grace and love.

    (missed ya out here on the interwebs.

    blessings.

    Reply

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