thankful days.

i read a book a few years ago that said this statement, 'thankfulness is a soil that pride does not easily grow in.'  that phrase has not fallen short of truth since i read it and it has often led me back to contentment when i'm desiring something i don't have.  i think that often an attitude of entitlement or of pridefulness gets me confused into thinking i need more, which is a lie.

this month i get to celebrate two of the greatest guys i know.  the love of my life later this month and my second born in the middle of the month.  three years ago when life was a wee bit simpler {with one child & one in utero} i did thankfulness posts daily.  these days seem vastly different {sigh} but i can't deny that i'm so incredibly grateful for these two guys.  two immaterial possessions that i never want to live without.

to say a bit more about thankfulness i thought i would share a recent story that changed my heart in a way i wasn't sure it could be changed.  at the beginning of the school year we had decided that it was time to hand over our 'cool' {or what we thought was} card and venture into van world.  let's face it with three children that still have to be strapped into an apparatus to drive anywhere and a stroller to boot our current 'mommy mobile' wasn't really doing the job as well as it had in the past.  but about a week after lamely trying to sell it light after light kept coming on along with some really awful noises heard going through the chick fil a drive thru {cue: children asking me terrifyingly... mommy, what's that noise?} so we took it in.  um, yea- i think i still need a moment of silence for this one.  as some would say it might be 'too soon' to even talk about it.

our car needed several repairs... the kind where you are about to just hand over your checkbook repairs.  so we decided that the van route was best and asked our friend in the car business to start looking for one for our family.  I conveniently took the car in while the mister was out of town and so i drove his car the rest of the week (& the following two after that)... a small, sedan while carting around my three children, yes in their apparatuses.  each and every time i strapped them in i prayed to God it was the last time because it was that darn awful.  three weeks later my car was ready and our friend was still on the hunt for the van.

mind you... going into this process i was so... done with my car, it was clown car to begin with, one of the repairs was the trunk because it couldn't open, add carpooling with another family and any cool factor that the car previous had was down the drain.  but after i got that car back having put three kids in the back of a small sedan for three weeks made me incredibly grateful to have my car back.

folks, this car has nasty stains, kid stains.. the kind you could spend hours cleaning and they would never come out.  it has quirks like you can't lock it because if you do it starts honking until you put the key in the ignition and turn it on.  but it also was the car i brought two of my kids home from the hospital in.  and the car that we got stuck in a white out in and decided on a family adventure.  it has taken us on vacations and it has been where many dear conversations have been held.

this being said, i never thought i'd be grateful to drive this car again, but i am.  in the right frame of mind, i love the stickiness and nasty stains because it reminds me of the immaterial blessings that are in this crazy clan of mine.  i'm really not sure when this soccer mom adventure will begin for me {aka minivan life}.  I will probably say less choice words when buckling my kids in and my kids don't find 'wearing things in' too difficult so i am sure it will look well loved soon enough... but in the meantime my tattered heart has become more grateful for my tattered car.  by golly i needed that lesson.

i hope you are learning tales of gratefulness in your life too.  they're hard to learn for our stubborn hearts but so desperately needed.
happy season of thankfulness.
signed,
kg