I forgot to be thankful today. I was settling into frustration, another night fighting sleep. I forgot the four walls that surround me and keep me safe. And the blanket of woven cotton covering my feet. I forgot the dog who lays beside me each night and accompanies me through life. I forgot that my children lay right beside me and are well.
At any given moment, life can change. At any given moment, life does what it does, picking us up and tossing us around like a thin shingle in a tornado. The secure parts of our lives ripped apart and catapulted across land settling like a heap of trash in a neighbors yard. We just don’t know about tomorrow.
So why fight the night? Why continue to run the race of worry, fear, and regret when my limbs are worn out and my thoughts old and narrow. This way of living has no room for life. I’d rather be thankful and grateful that I am within plastered walls. That my children are within reach. That my country is not at war, at least not so close for me to hear the bullets but someone is hearing the chaos of crime and is wide eyed through the night unshielded. Their cardboard walls unable to protect them from anything. Their children unable to enjoy the fantasy of youth.
Even in this new, unfamiliar, empty apartment, I have everything. I am on my living room floor thinking and worrying that this isn’t enough. That I’m unable to provide enough, when the grace of God opened my eyes just a little more allowing me to see and feel the worries of the world and in an instant I was rich again.
I will take my thoughts on this sleepless night out across the indigo sky and pray for you.
Victoria
Victoria Dillard Daily 