Thankful Tuesday: Bonhoeffer and Thanks for the Little Things

If this is Tuesday, then I must be thankful. Or so Mama Monk and Bonhoeffer remind me. Mama Monk because she hosts Thankful Tuesdays and keeps me occupied with remembering the small delights. Bonhoeffer, because he is accompanying me (or I him) through Lent and I have been instructed to write in my journal, daily, a list of those things for which I am grateful. To start, I am grateful to Bonhoeffer, who reminded me in the midst of my anguished interior wailing about my own defects and lack of joyful faith, to give thanks for the little things. He writes (in Life Together, p. 37)

“. . . We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the small (and yet really not so small!) gifts we receive daily. How can God entrust great things to those who will not gratefully receive the little things from God’s hand?”  

And I do often forget. Because life keeps intervening and pushes me scatter helter skelter into rescuing fainting daughters as they whimper from the bathroom or unblocking random cell phone calls that blink “blocked” with every ring (that will be tomorrow’s post).

But since thankful is now my evening Lenten practise, I have a list to remind me of what I am thankful for, even if the day scoots out from under my keyboarded fingers.

So. I am thankful for: 

1. Bonhoeffer & Mama Monk for helping me give thanks for the small.
2. Good buses that get my daughter to work on time, even when she gets up late and stomps/slams her way out the door.
3.  Tim Horton’s healthy lunch choices (chicken salad sandwich, 380 calories … and thankful for the internet that lets me look that up!) that let my daughter defy our best advice rebel by choosing to buy her lunch out as often as possible.
4.  The new old pine coffee table and Persian carpet (from my family home) finally laid out in our living room that allow Jessie and the cat to work and nap in comfort.
5. My Monday meditationgroup that returns me to my family and myself with a new measure of hope and hopefulness, even in this desert time.
6.  Delayed contracts that give me time to think, blog, wrestle with transition daemons (meaning mostly myself and my need to control).
7.   Jessie’s increasing independence that allows Dan and me to BOTH pursue our passions, even at the same time!

And you? What are you thankful for? Come and share over at Mama Monk.