Forever grateful--Spiritual Journey Thursday

Denise has given us the prompt of exploring gratitude for this month's Spiritual Journey reflection. You can find her own post here.

My current gratitude journal, like my last one, started as a blank Erin Condren bound notebook.  For years I treated myself to an appointment book each late December, prettily illustrated and already dated with plenty of space for my nightly notes.  But I also hoard blank journals, and it occurred to me a couple of years ago that I could pre-date the pages, making use of what I already possess.  

I began nocturnal gratitude journaling decades ago after reading Sarah Ban Breathnach's Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy.  It was the one practice the author wished her readers to continue, above all the other suggestions she proffered in her daily musings.  The book and the practice of gratitude journaling appeared when I needed them the most--as I was grieving my mother's illness and subsequent death.  Writing five things for which I was thankful was often hard during those first dark months after her passing.  I can truthfully say that even now, "washer and dryer", "indoor plumbing", and "comfy bed" are mentioned fairly often, as is "pantry full of food" and "the health of my family".

Gratitude journaling, however mundane the details might be, makes me softer, helps me sleep better, and puts me in a state of constant gratitude.  It's not hard to think of what I'm grateful for, through that lens:

I am grateful for

the electricity that 

powered the alarm that

woke me up for quiet me time that

helped me face the challenges of the day and

the coffee maker that also woke me up and

colorful pens to write my morning page and

internet access to connect with my friends and

the colleagues who lend me support and

the students who follow library expectations with a smile and

the free Diet Coke in the teacher lounge fridge and

the PTA folks who bought us those sodas and

the mom-turned-sub who will stand in for me and

my son's graduation for college (the need for a sub) and

his sister, my daughter--the care they have for one another and

my husband, their father, who loves us through thick and thin and

this circle of Spirit-seekers who will read my words, as I read theirs, and

the glow I will get from their posts that

I will write about in my gratitude journal that

sits next to my comfy bed that

is right by the alarm

for which I am grateful.

There is a place, too, for which I am forever grateful--actually two linked places:  the hospital where both of my children were born, and the hospital which cradled my firstborn preemie until she came home.  Whenever I am near either of those two buildings, a silent thank you blooms in my heart for the people and medical miracles that made us, and kept us, a family.

Thank you, Denise, for the prompt of gratitude this Thursday.