Beginning again....

Here, my heart has found a softness I've been missing of late...

I will begin again counting blessings.... Can I too reach 1000? Can the simple act of gratitude so change a life?

Reading Ann Voskamp's blog, and now, book has opened my red rimmed, tired eyes to what my Lord really has waiting for me too; if I can just seize this daily, moment by moment act of thanksgiving. If I take time to come here and add, reflect, and kneel humbly before Him who gives all- who gives only good and perfect gifts. Who takes the muck of life, and turns the bad into gardens of the soul; if only I stop to look for it eyes wide open.

Here, I begin again....remembering....restoring what He gave to us all in the beginning... bountiful life.... the blessing of here...my count will start. may it never again cease...

1. Children's laughter as imaginative games flood my home. Today it's fairies throwing a party and building "huts".

2. Jazz piano rifts...how amazing to be provided with a teacher that teaches Suzuki method with Jazz. I've always had a fondness for the moodiness and soul of that style. Until radar I missed how Gods blessed my heart, not just AJs in this...

3. Rain! Although my children are bound by it, the soil needs it. My future garden space will be easier to weed and prep and hopefully bear much fruit. All sunshine a desert makes. We want NO deserts here. Not of the land or if the soul. So I can finally welcome the rain.

4. Great books. Again today I am blessed by the honey of good authors!!! For me and the babies. We were reading an abridged version of the Wind in the Willows then while looking for another book I found the honey of an original. Never accept a sweet and low version!!! You miss so much. The under tones and subtleties are lost. Reading the originals make the story vivid, fluid. Such a great reminder of how the authentic is ALWAYS worth the time.

5. Friendships that are like family, and family that are trusted friends. Relationships that feed and are fed. The sustaining moments of crying with and for others. Truly laughing out loud, and shaking our heads. This is the stuff that fills a life and heart.

...Five for today, five for tomorrow. Can I grasp five new moments of thanksgiving a day? Five new places to find love and gratitude? Five moments of awe in which I can see His hand here, now in the these moments? Do I dare? Will it change me?

I am going to try. Here I stand hands unfurling to blessings I may have missed waiting for someday to come.