In Pursuit of a Thankful Spirit

Years ago I used to participate in a blog hop where bloggers, mostly women of faith, listed their blessings weekly, counting toward a thousand. It was a good spiritual exercise, but it was never great blogging–for me, anyway. You have to have a pretty strong charism for pairing words and images to make such a thing interesting to readers, and I never had the knack.

But gratitude is a much under-exercised muscle, and every so often, when my world starts circling the drain, I need a reset in gratitude. Such has been my reality lately.

So as I grind back into gear here at Intentional Catholic, I am going to devote my Thursdays to making note of what is good and beautiful and holy in my life. And if it doesn’t make much of an impression on the online world, well, that’s okay. This is for my own growth in holiness.

But even so, I invite anyone who comes across this post, whether by blog, Facebook, or Instagram, to take a moment to reset your own heart by highlighting a blessing or two in the comments.

Today, I am grateful for…

Family Bible Study with a good friend and her kids.

A fun and engaging summer school program that keeps the kids occupied and having fun at the same time.

The wisdom of middle age, which allows me to recognize that sometimes relationships can’t be repaired, and removal is necessary for one’s own spiritual and mental health.

Growth in understanding in the most important relationships in my life.

The magic–and I use that term in its holiest, most God-directed sense–of the play of light and dark along the Katy Trail, as the slanting rays of the morning sun pierce the woods in beams of light and set the soft grasses aglow with celestial light.

The iridescence of a blue bunting, racing me along the trail before darting sideways to rest in a tree.

The deep, pervasive stillness of a historic country cemetery–a place to retreat and be still with God, surrounded by buzzing bees and warm breezes.

A nap on a memorial bench beneath the wide, shady branches of a walnut grove.

The tiny fawn, smaller than the gravestones, crossing the lawn of the cemetery, which dropped to its knees and stared at me from behind a tuft of unmown grass and eventually, after deciding I posed no threat, proceeded to sniff and explore the flagpole before darting off with an ungainly, adorable gait.

Growth in trust (however far I still have to go) that no matter how screwed up everything in the world seems, God can use those events to nudge things closer to holiness. That I don’t have to carry the weight of trying to figure out how to fix things that are far too big for me.