Dear diary

I think I have inadvertently forgotten to be grateful. I mean, I honestly am, I say it all the time, I appreciate the life that I have, the things that I am able to afford, the country I live in and the community God has given me. I am grateful without measure for Gods grace and love and generosity towards me that He would call me His daughter and lavish His love upon me.

And yet.

I have forgotten how to be truly grateful, so overwhelmed with gratitude that I must give it out, bless others, do whatever it takes to love on another, include them in what I feel and know and am grateful for. I have forgotten that it is easy to be grateful for what I have and am given but that a true demonstration of such gratitude must surely come in a drive to find another who does not know in their lives the reason for gratefulness I have in mine. It is the compulsion to touch another, share a heart, give an ear, extend a hug in circumstances within which gratitude seems impossible. It is loving the unlovely, the hurting, the desperately hopeless.

Silver and gold I do not have. But I am grateful for all I have, and that cannot stop at feeling good, thanking God and appreciating how blessed I am. It must overflow to those around me, it has to. This is why we were created, this is why God has poured out His goodness. He has given us the ability to include and gift the things we take as standard in our lives, community, belonging, a cup of coffee, the desire to listen, the time to care, the contacts to make an impossible situation escapable, the education and training to find a solution and make a strategy, the God to provide the healing and adoption. He has given us these things that we, even without a dime, can radically and irreparably impact someones life for the better.

I don't care how cheesy it sounds. It really does simply boil down to Love.