#FMSPhotoaday Sept 4th: In my mailbox:

Sometimes I really hate checking the mailbox. At my house, a whole lot of the time, all I get is advertisements. That’s not fun. I’ve gone to paperless billing on virtually all my accounts, so I rarely get bills in the mail. That’s not NOT fun. What is actually fun is when you receive something nice in the mail. I shop online (when there is a good coupon or something I need that I can buy for cheap on eBay), so once every six or eight weeks so something that I ordered suddenly appears in the mail.

Those days are always the best mail days. Well, it just so happens there was a good coupon for Old Navy on Friday and that my order arrived in the mail today. A happy surprise on a rather gloomy day.

I think one of the things that I am going to appreciate about this Photoaday project is the way that it is making me think of things that might normally escape my notice. Little things that I need to be thankful for like a great moment between my Dad and my chosen-nephew. Or the clothes that arrived today (most of which actually fit, yippee! The purple jeans will fit in another few weeks, I swear). How blessed am I  that I can click a few buttons and have clothing arrive at my front door a few days later?

I was listening to a Matt Chandler book this summer and he was saying how we ought to go around thankful for everything. Not just the little things like clothing arriving at the front door and the fact that said clothing fits. But the things that none of us ever think about – the fact that our houses didn’t fall down on our heads today, or that we woke up with breath in our lungs, or that all the airplanes didn’t suddenly fall out of the sky. These are things we take for granted, but they are things that show us how good God is (since God is the one who came up with the rules of physics and life and aerodynamics…at least, He’s the one that those of us with faith credit for all that stuff).

That concept stuck with me, and though I won’t for a second pretend I’ve perfected the art of being thankful for the (seemingly) mundane. I will say that I’m working on it.

So let me take a moment to say “Thanks God”. Thanks that I am breathing, and so are the two dogs and a cat that share my house. Thanks for the fact that my parents arrived back to their home safely after driving all over Nova Scotia, Vermont, and Maine for the past three weeks. Thanks for the clothes that arrived at my door today, and the money that paid for them, and the calling that allowed me to earn that money. Thanks. For the big things and the little things and the mundane things. I can’t say it enough. Thanks.