A Thank Offering

"He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me

and he prepares the way
so that I may show him the salvation of God."
Psalm 50:23

I wrote that awful blog about pride a while ago, and I think gratitude is a baby step away from it. You can't be thankful for something if you thought you deserved it anyway, right? Or if you're too busy wondering what your neighbor got instead? According to Psalm 50, gratitude is also how God prepares us for what I like to call His Great Explanation. No laughing matter. Anyway, I don't know about all of that (though I hope to one day) but I do know that gratitude tends to lighten the heart. I'll take that.

So here is my thank offering for today.

1. Do you know that I have the sweetest, warmest, most curiously forgiving husband in the world? He is quite something. He loves baseball and eating huge amounts of spaghetti (tonight: the meat sauce variety. YUM-O.) He takes a childlike joy in grown-up things, like in working hard and in making me feel like I'm responsible for all his smiling. I am so grateful for how he works for us and how he takes care of me. Shoot - I am just grateful that he wants to hang out with me! I am grateful for his easy grace, his goofy jokes and his Kermit the Frog impression, though it could use a lot more work and a lot less 'air-time,' if you know what I mean. I'm thankful to God that He gave Aaron those handsome brown eyes, and an affinity for red meat. That was critical. I am not grateful for how God multiplies Aaron's dirty laundry daily, like He did to the loaves and the fishes. Please do not ask me about this. To recap: thankful for all the Aaron is and does and teaches me. Not thankful for amount of dirty laundry produced.

Next.

2. I am thankful for our jobs. I don't like getting up every day and doing the same thing, I just don't. But that is inconsequential compared to all the wonderful and undeserved blessings that our jobs provide us. I'm thankful God helps me get up every day (my roommate Ashley can attest to what a literal miracle this is) and I'm thankful that we can experience a kind of security that realistically, the vast majority of people in the world don't. What luck! (Luck = blessing that I am not capable to understand, so I figure the concept closest to it that I can somewhat comprehend is luck. Please don't theologize all up and down that part.)

3. I am thankful for this big mug that Aaron made for me when we painted pottery a few weeks ago. It has my name in cursive (no small feat for Aaron - ha) and a big guitar on it, outlined by bubble paint. And it is purple, which is obviously the world's superior color. And it holds just the right amount of hot chocolate, which I am about to take a sip of. (A ginger sip though. Because this will be the first sip of the day. Is it too hot? I will just have to take that gamble). Mmm. Not too hot.

4. I am thankful that I get to go to Myrtle Beach in a week and a half. Oh nelly, I just got chills typing that. This will be an unexpected vacation (I didn't know I was going until about a month ago) and that is the best kind. I am thankful not only for the fun it promises, but also for the excitement it is delivering even now! I'm telling you, going to bed tonight knowing I get to see Joey, Jenny, Mom, Dad and Eric in just a few short days is the sweetest kind of grace.

5. I am thankful for puppy Jethro. Yes, he has no concept of personal space and he often climbs on top of me at hilariously inopportune moments, but he has very floppy ears so all is forgiven. He has the best "YAY! YOU'RE HOME!" face as well, so it all evens out.

5. I am thankful for my Aunt Cris. Three years ago today, she passed away, and I am grateful for that too because she got to finish her wandering a lot sooner than most of us. (I am certain that is because she packed an unfathomable amount of loving others into an absurdly short period of time.) I'm thankful for those awesome rolls she baked for Thanksgiving every year (the warm and buttery variety...Yes Lord) but more than that, I'm thankful for what a graceful, forgiving and loving name she gave the rest of us Christians who frankly, should hang our heads for the slimy reputation we often give our faith and that Aunt Cris had to fight to disprove. I'm told that someone at her funeral told my uncle that she had only seen Christ alive in two people, and Aunt Cris was one of them. She had done it. Thanks Aunt Cris, and thanks God, for sharing her.

See? All that time I just spent discovering what I have to be thankful about was time spent NOT comparing myself, NOT dwelling on what I wish I had or that someone else didn't, and NOT burning my tongue on hot chocolate. Win.

What's your thank offering?