“So what’s with the pictures of the dish rack?” he asks, clicking through a half-dozen photos on my camera.
Oh…right. Those. Photographs of the kitchen dish rack that sits on the counter next to the sink. “Well, the light just looked really pretty reflecting on the metal, so I took some pictures,” I explain to Brad, a bit sheepishly.
So now I’m taking pictures of the dish rack.
This is what keeping a gratitude list has done to me.
It’s opened my eyes, my ears, my senses. I see God everywhere – in the backyard, in the faces of strangers, even in the most utilitarian household items – afternoon light slanting across the coffee table, the warmth of a blanket pulled from the dryer, a dish rack on the kitchen counter. And I can’t help myself. I feel such joy, so immensely blessed in response, that I list these gifts in a wrinkled notebook, on pages stained with splashes of grape juice, spattered with dried droplets of minestrone soup. Sometimes, so moved am I by this joy, this gratitude, I grab my camera and snap pictures. Even when the object is a ridiculous dish rack.
I am, as Isaiah says, “overwhelmed with joy in the Lord my God!” (Isaiah 61:10)
It’s a little silly, isn’t it? I mean, who takes six photographs of a hard-water-corroded dish rack? And if you peek at my gratitude list, you’ll see other oddities as well: smell of snow in the air…my new chicken friend (don’t ask)…Hilma’s donut recipe…old man slowly riding bike…baby playing with the Ramen noodle package in the grocery store…laughing at our lizard shedding…
But maybe, maybe, it’s not silly at all.
Because usually we miss them, don’t we? We miss the blessings.
God bestows hundreds, thousands of blessings on us daily, weekly, monthly, and we miss them; they pass us by; we don’t take time to look. The listing, the snapping of that shutter? It’s worship – a rejoicing, a thanking, a praising in the moment, in the now. An acknowledgement that we “are a people the Lord has blessed.” (Isaiah 61:9)
The list, gift after gift spooling down the page, each item woven into the next, is a song of God’s love. And a song to God as well.
How do you take time to acknowledge and appreciate the many gifts from God?
With Ann and Laura {on Monday}
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