Seventeen Gifts

If you read my recent post on the Joy Dare, you may remember me saying that I'm recording three daily gifts over the next year, to accumulate one thousand gifts during the year 2013.  It's a lovely challenge, though changing my mindset to be aware of the gifts around me, has proven to be a difficult task thus far.  Because of hurried days and the stress that has been tailing me lately, the little, beautiful things have been blurred between.  All the more reason this challenge is for me.  "Life is not an emergency," Voskamp says.  I know better than to live in a constant state of fret.  There is too much goodness and graciousness to let slip by without thankfulness.

So I give thanks:

1.  Sunlight streams through the curtains
2.  Hilltop valley views
3.  Heavy, heaping quilts
4.  Rising to slow mornings
5.  Waking to my boy's snuggles
6.  The post office clerk who regularly asks about my kitchen table and whether or not it can be eaten at, or if it is covered in crafts?
7.   Spontaneous I love you's imparted throughout each day from my boy
8.   Thick coffee-scented rooms
9.  White, quiet, winter mornings
10. Siblings stating their love for each other
11.  Handmade surprises from friends, for no reason other than to show kindness
12.  Watching a six year old grow to love reading more and more
13.  Singing, "I belong with you, you belong with me, sweetheart..." with my precious ones
14.  A days worth of fresh eggs from the coop
15.  Little helpers in the kitchen
16.  Handmade pictures and cards galore, from my girl
17.  God's faithfulness

May you see the gifts in each day--

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