Just BE….thankful.

I recently read two great books (actually still mid book on the second).  A Thousand Splendid Suns followed up by A Thousand Gifts…no, no specific fixation with things of a thousand (I was given these independently).  I was so moved by the first, the harshness of some lives so vividly told, relatable yet personally unfamiliar.  The strands of hope that to any one else would be overlooked, but to the one, the victim of such trauma, a strand of hope upon which they could attach each breathe.  The ability to be grateful in such bleakness for any sign of purpose brings joy in the worst of circumstances.   This book is also currently relevant in light of all that is going on in the middle east.  It makes my heart see past the general horror of it all into the individual lives living its reality…oh so hard.

The canvas of this first book makes reading the subsequent book even more remarkable, because I am not only seeing it through my own lens, but reading it through the eyes of Mariam and Laila.  Seeing that it is gratitude for even the smallest of things, raw and gravely fought for, that opens the door to a life fully lived.  Actually thankfulness painted in detail, rather than with broad stroke condition, brings about presence of spirit and stillness in time.

This really is life etching for me…building on to what God was already working in my soul with one of my very first posts "Just Be."  Maybe what he is showing me is this…just be...thankful.  Does that usher in true presence (both mine and HIS)?
Well, think on that…as you (and I) go about a busy next week.  For me it is the beginning of school, learning to be a teacher and a parent wrapped in to one.  Give me luck!

- Heidi