Being Grateful

In times like these, I am glad I have this habit honed to a fine skill.

I have always been able to find those graces in my world for which I was truly thankful for. I would go through 'it' all again for my girls...that is how grateful I am for them. I am thankful for my health, for the opportunities my education gives me, and for getting to live where I do.

I can even be grateful, albeit mostly in retrospect, for those harder lessons that have nevertheless shown me life's greater truths. I am grateful for the changes that have motivated me to grow, as painful as they were at the time. I am grateful for the hard stuff, because I see now that is where the more brilliant facets of my character have been polished from.

But ever once in a while, I have to remind myself to be grateful. Sometimes it happens in the moment. Sometimes it happens after the fact. Sometimes I am reminded by others...oooh, I don't like that so much...

But it always needs to be there for me. Because there's nothing that I can't be grateful for. Even the ugly, nasty stuff. I know that. I have seen that. It is a axiom, proven and recorded. I trust in that truth.

And yet.

I still have to ask myself sometimes, 'I wonder what God in her heaven figures I need to learn from this particular person...'