Thankful

My son Charlie almost got hit by a car last week. It all happened so quick – he shot out into the busy street, eager to cross the road to get home. He didn’t look both ways and the next thing we knew he was standing in front of a large black Suburban which had, miraculously, seen him and quickly stopped.

The image of that, the thoughts of what could have been, were on the forefront of my mind for several days after that. I kept thinking about the ‘what ifs’; how if the worst had happened we wouldn’t be doing even the simple acts of life (unloading the dishwasher, switching over the laundry). We’d be doing the unthinkable.

I realized, after a point, that it wasn’t doing me any good to keep thinking about that scary situation. Replaying the scene in my mind was making me a wreck. So I decided to focus my thoughts on thanking the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit for their mercy in that moment. And then I offered many hearty shouts of gratitude to Charlie’s guardian angel for his protection.

There’s a delicate balance in dealing with close calls or difficult seasons. We shouldn’t spend our days thinking about all the terrible things that could happen to us or our children. But these kinds of situations do offer us the chance to appreciate all the wonderful things that life has to offer – and how the simplest acts of beauty and goodness in life really are so precious.

In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, I’m sure many of try to focus our hearts and minds on a spirit of gratitude, and that attitude is the perfect way to enter the Advent season as well. There is so much to be grateful for, on so many levels.

We can start big: gratitude for creation, for our freedom, for this great land we call our country. And we are grateful for the men and women who fight to defend our land, here and abroad. These are all important aspects of our lives.

Then there is another level with more of a personalized scope, aspects of our life unique to us. We thank God for our parents and siblings; our spouse and children; friends and relatives.

And then, we can put a finer point on it – stopping to examine the hundreds of gifts we have in the simplest parts of our day. In the days following Charlie’s close call, these were the moments that had me grateful to the point of tears. I was grateful to tie his shoe, to unlock the garage for him, to pick him up from school. I was grateful to do these things for him and all my boys, because I was reminded of the precious gift of uninterrupted daily life.

We show gratitude for the tiniest details of our life, because so often, that is where we find God. His loving hand guides us, his grace carries us.

God’s grace – that is one of the biggest gifts we have here on earth. It’s something we cannot see and that we may often take for granted. But His grace and mercy are at the center of all we have to be grateful for.