Blessed

I've been feeling so blessed recently.  Of course, I am always blessed, but this month I have been realizing it daily.  I originally intended to record my "1000 gifts" this Lent like I did two years ago, but somehow I haven't started.  I feel the gratitude several times daily and when it wells up inside of me, I don't feel the need to write it down.   Two years ago, my Lenten resolution of recording God's blessings was a discipline practiced at a time in which I did not readily recognize the gifts of God in my life.  That discipline bore fruit in helping me to recognize the joy that is my life.  I love the quote: (maybe from Ann Voskamp's book?) "Gratitude doesn't come from joy, joy comes from gratitude."  It's true!   Those 6 weeks in 2011, I had to make myself write down those 20 blessings every. single. day. and if I didn't look hard for them I wouldn't be able to make my list by the end of the day.  And so, by the end of Lent, in the spring sunshine at Eastertide, I was "feeling" more joyful, because I was always thanking and choosing to be grateful.  I had achieved that discipline of noticing sunlight on hair and soft baby nursing noises and tall drinks of cool water . . .   But it isn't always easy to "feel" that grace in your life.

Now, as I near the end of my pregnancy with this new life inside me, and as Lent flies by, I do feel the gratitude.   It is amazing, and catches me by surprise with its strength of feeling.  It hasn't always been this way during a pregnancy for me.  Life with little ones is a weight just as much as it is a blessing, and sometimes I have struggled to see the forest of a happy, well-blessed life for the trees of  the daily drudgery of that same life.
I'm constantly surprised at how much I am looking forward to this baby's birth.  Not in the "get this baby out of my body" way, but out of an unadulterated desire to meet and hold him or her.  I find myself trying to talk myself out of how much I want the birth-day to come reminding myself of all the worries that normally plague me pre-birthing-day.  I have no frozen dinners, no written-out school plan for the girls, barely any baby supplies are bought, and the rush of activities and plans that are about to descend on us in April really should stress me out, but (so far :) I am just looking forward so much to having this baby in my arms.  It doesn't make sense really, when I know so well all the upheaval and unexpectedness of a baby's first months, and I have approached every baby's birth but Turtle's with a healthy fear of this scary increase in my out-of-utero offspring! :)   But I have decided that I am no longer going to examine my excitement and my feelings of blessedness for flaws and "voices of reason"  but fully enjoy these weeks of sweet anticipation and also this last little bit of my current life before the new normal begins.

Thank you Lord, for all my blessings!