Gratitude and small blessings

This past week, Southern Hubby and I have been praying nightly for a church project. We start off our prayers with thanksgiving to God. When we first started this little prayer time, we were thanking Him for the obvious important things in our life- SH still having a flourishing career in this economic depression, our family's health, our beautiful home, my ability to stay home, our thriving marriage (thanks to this), and so on.

But soon I felt we were becoming a bit redundant. So one night I thanked God for my messy house. I thanked Him for the dirty dishes I had still in the sink. I thanked Him for the massive wrinkled laundry that awaited my attention. Because to me, dirty dishes meant we were eating; wrinkled laundry pile meant that we had clothes; and a dirty house meant that we had a roof over our heads. Then I realized that there are some people that don't get the luxury of washing dishes or folding clothes, or dusting, sweeping, wiping counters, cleaning toilets, making the bed or any of the other hundreds of tasks I am fortunate to do each day. (Wait, did I just say the luxury of cleaning a toilet? I guess I did! And you know what- I'm sticking to it!) I'm sure there are plenty of women out there, missing their babies at day care, who dream about having a job like mine.

And soon I started thanking God for all these small and simple blessings He has brought into my life. I'm so happy that He has shown me that a messy kitchen is something to be thankful for. And from that point on I decided to still be thankful for the big things, but also take more notice of the smaller blessings in my life- the ones that went unnoticed for far too long. I thank Him for my hairdryer, because it means I have hair to comb unlike cancer patients. I thank Him for my once beautiful but now chipped manicure, because it means that my hands have been busy this past week, unlike the paralyzed. I thank Him for a husband that throws his pants on the bed instead of walking them 10 feet to the hamper, because that means I have a man in my life that I love, unlike a war widow or a divorced single mom.

I'm opening my eyes to the little things all around me. And I pray that you do as well. In fact, I was even thinking about starting a weekly meme so we can all show a small blessing we are thankful for. It would only require one picture and a few words of why we are thankful for it. Would anyone be up for doing it? I was thinking maybe Thursday or Tuesday. I know Mondays are full of memes but I can't think of other days that are like that.

I went ahead and designed a button and banner just in case (alright, I was bored last night! lol) Let me know what you think about this idea and if you'd want to participate.

PS.- I've put a poll on my right sidebar. You can vote there if you don't want to leave a comment.

PPS.- After much thought, I have decided to suspend Crafty Tuesdays for the time being. There didn't seem to be enough participation. :( Maybe when fall gets here and people want to hibernate in thier homes, I'll put it back up. There's something about fall that gets my creative juices going!

Happy thanksgiving and praise!

xoxo Y

UPDATE: I will be holding the first Smallest Blessings post here tomorrow! Be observant tonight and tomorrow morning of what small blessings you have in your life right now! Rules coming later tonight with a Mr. Linky in the morning. Can't wait!

Y, the Southern Housewife