Turning 41 today, I am filled with gratitude for a full and good life. I write this to the background noise of three beautiful daughters playing together, imagining voices for their stuffed animals, and even working on my birthday cake. I received beautiful birthday cards from each of my kids, and my wife, and really I can’t imagine what else I could possibly want.
Gratitude is the proper response to God’s many good gifts to us. This doesn’t deny that there are many sorrows to be borne in this life. There is enough brokenness in everything, inside us and all around us, to fuel a lifetime of lament. But this is somehow mixed in with the goodness and blessing of every good thing that is.
I recognize today, in a way that I didn’t for most of my life, that existence itself is gift. Aquinas said something about that, I think. You know, ontology and stuff. To wake up and exist is something that calls for thanks. To wake up in a beautiful old house to a loving spouse and precious children is something that calls for an overflowing fountain of gratitude.
Sure, my vehicles keep breaking down, the grass needs to be mowed (again), something broke off from the top of the chimney in the last windstorm, the kids too often bicker, and there are some scary life decisions that still need to be made. There’s no end to the toil. You know, Ecclesiastes and all that.
But this morning, it’s good to stop and just be grateful for life. For my parents who loved me and made me who I am, for a legacy of God’s grace that I can trace through so many generations, and for the chance to do good work. For so many other things. For the cup of strong coffee, another beautiful day, and good books.
“My cup overflows,” and “the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance” (Psalm 23:5; 16:6).
