1000 Gifts from God

Years ago I started a Gratitude Journal, but unfortunately, I did not keep it up.  Now,  some of my friends have been reading a book, One Thousand Gifts.  I looked at a sample of the book and couldn’t quite get into her style of writing.  But my friends’ lists inspired me to begin again.  I used to think it had to really be something significant to write about, but recently, there are many days just little things come to my mind for which I’m very thankful.  When you’ve been forced off your feet for many weeks, you kind of get a different perspective as you go through your day.  So I’m going to start keeping my list of things that I feel are “Gifts from God.” 

1000 Gifts from God 

1.   My first, and most important, gift from God is His Son Jesus Christ.  Thanks to Godly parents, I accepted Jesus as my Savior at a very young age.  He is my closest and dearest friend.  I could not live a moment without Him at my side. 

2.  My parents have gone on to Heaven, but they left a wonderful Godly heritage.  They taught me from a young age to love the Lord.  Every time the church door was open, we were there, too.  And we drove 9 miles one way to our church.  They taught me how to live and what to value.  I owe SO much to them. 

3.  My husband is a faithful, hardworking best friend.  We went to high school together in a class of 14.  We’ve been through thick and thin together for 45 years.  I hope we can grow old together.

 

4.  My children are Mark (1971) and Jeannine (1974), and they are the delight of my life.  I’m so proud of both of them.  Mark is an engineer and Jeannine has a degree in social work, but is a stay-at-home mom right now.  Any time either one calls, I drop everything to share in their lives.  I never see or hear enough of them. 

 

5.  My grandchildren bring so much joy into my life.  Mark has the 2 boys, and Jeannine has the 2 girls.  Dylan (2001) is a tall, dark-haired handsome young man.  He makes straight A’s in school and is a talented soccer player, always playing on teams older than his age.  He was born premature, but did very well at birth.  He gave us a scare at 4 months of age when it was discovered his formamen ovale (soft spot) closed prematurely.  This necessitated some very major surgery on his skull at 6 months of age.  But today, he is just a normal active boy.

 

      Christian (2003) is a brown-haired sweet young man who makes straight A’s (tested gifted), and is a dynamite soccer player, too.  He was born in Brazil and came to America to stay when he was about 2.  I hate that I missed his baby years.  Chris loves to draw.  He’s such a thoughtful, kind, and helpful young man.

 

       Maya (2005) is a dark-haired, dark brown-eyed, very petite sweet little girl.  She is smart as a whip.  She’s always been ahead of others her age ever since she first started to babble.  She would rather read a book than watch TV or play with her toys.  She can entertain herself for hours with anything.  She’s quite a little drama queen, too.  J  She loves to take me into their garden via phone face-time and show me all the flowers and vegetables that are growing there.  I think she might have inherited my gene for crafting/sewing.  (I hope!)

      Sofia (2003) is a light brown haired, sea blue-eyed, bundle of energy.  She is a snuggler and loves to sit on Grandma’s lap, though she barely fits anymore.  She struggled early on with something they called sensory integration disorder.  She doesn’t feel things as the usual person does.  She’s been through all kinds of testing, and various treatment modalities of which occupational therapy seemed to help the most.  They have now determined that she is highly ADHD.  She’s very smart, too, and is learning to read. She loves to talk with Grandma on the phone via face-time.

6.  My love for music.  I took piano lessons in the early grade school years, and was the pianist in most of the churches I belonged to from my teens through adulthood.  It is relaxing to be able to just sit and play.  I don’t have a recording-style voice, but I love to sing the hymns I learned as a child and now the contemporary choruses we sing in church.  So often an old hymn will come to my mind as I go about my day. 

7.  My hobbies.  I’ve done about every crafty thing there is to do – tole painting, knitting, crocheting, rug hooking, scrapbooking, cross stitching, ceramics - just about everything except needlepoint. Then one day in 1979, I took a quilting class, and all other crafts fell by the wayside!  I had found my LOVE!!  And I’ve been quilting ever since.  I first learned to do it all by hand, and felt it would be an insult to a piece of fabric to let a machine touch it!  But then all the short-cut machine methods came into being, and I knew I’d never get all that fabric made into quilts doing it by hand, so I converted.  I still love to needle-turn applique by hand, though.  I just think it looks the best.  Since getting a nice combination sewing/embroidery machine, I’ve fallen in love with embroidery, also, and incorporate it in my quilt making.   Below is a quilt I made for the family of a 9-11 victim.  You can read the story here. 911 Quilt

 

8.  My little Annie (May 2012).  She’s a beautiful small tri-colored rat terrier.  I have papers on her, but never did register her since we had no intention of raising little ones.  I’ve had dogs all my life, but after the one before Annie died, I decided I was done with dogs.  I get too attached, and I didn’t want to go through losing another one.  I was without for 9 years.  Then after retiring, and being home all day, I got the bug.  She’s a very smart little thing and a lot of company.  She loves my lap and is quite jealous of anything that takes my attention away from her for very long – my computer, my sewing machine, etc.