Grateful

I woke up today feeling grateful; ever have days like that? I don't mean "thankful" in the deep, reverent kind of sense of thankfulness. These are not "Thanksgivingesque" feelings I'm feeling. Instead I find myself thankful for a bunch of random, "little things," which I express by using the word "grateful." What am I grateful for? Well...things like:

Friends who don't forget you when you are unemployed, or don't seem to have much to offer. I have a few of these; people who don't judge me by my income or by what I have to offer them, or to society in general. They are just friends who care about me. They encourage me; they double my joy and half my sorrow. I suspect I do the same for them. What a blessing they are (and you know who you are!)

The fact that I am a man. I know this one sounds really odd, but I just finished a book that mainly involved women (The Help by Kathryn Stockett). Honestly, I don't know how women do it; all the things they have to think about, and do and avoid; all the ways their minds are constantly working behind the scenes. It's so much easier being a man. Things are so much simpler, clearer, black and white. Besides, I always have a built-in excuse for any faux pas I might stumble into: "I'm a man, for crying out loud! Gimme a break!"

That neither of my children went through a rebellious phase. I chalk this one up mainly to the influence of their mother. I rebelled, most people I know did. But Donna didn't, and neither did Amy or Leigh. Among my friends whose kids did rebel (or currently are), this seems to be the #1 source of frustration and disappointment in their lives. I, we, were so fortunate in this.

I'm thankful for where I am in my life right now. I realize that sounds odd too: I'm unemployed and have been for over a year, I'm seemingly lost vocationally, one of my closest friends died recently, we don't have a church home, we're burning through our savings at an alarming rate, and I'm questioning a lot of things that I used to be so confident about (perhaps too confident?). But because of all this I find myself closer to God than ever and confident he has me on a great adventure. I'm expecting to come over a hill soon and see an amazing vista of what God has in store. Each day I draw closer to realizing what that "something great" is. I get chills thinking about it.

I'm thankful for the library (see, I told you it was random stuff). It astounds me that I can go over there and check out a book for FREE and enter worlds my measly imagination couldn't begin to think of. I love to read, and thankfully, it's one of the most affordable pastimes in America because good old Ben Franklin had a fantastic book-sharing idea a couple of hundred years ago.

The final addition to my eccentric list of what I'm thankful for today is my new iPhone (and yes I realize how lame and immature that sounds). I'm usually an early adopter to new technology, but I held out a long time on the iPhone. I'm just not an Apple kind of guy. But now that I have one I am totally sold. It is by far the best, easiest to use and coolest (cringe) device I have ever owned.

And so there you have it. Again, nothing deep there, just random things I'm grateful for right now. Yes, there are other, deeper ones (family, health, etc...) but hey, we can't always be deep can we? Have a great day!