the gratitude challenge. #littlethingsmatter

The little things matter.

Today, today on this week of Thanksgiving I am choosing to see the little things, the joy moments tucked in a life of busy. We talk about adopting it,  sweet moms, in the midst of our days – this finding joy posture of life. Yet, so often it’s easy to live life on hold – waiting until this fixes or we have things the way we want them or until tomorrow – to let ourselves really live. I know, I’ve done it. I’ve lived on holding waiting for things to get a certain way and then missing out on the simple, beautiful, little things gifts found in today.

Let’s not live on hold. 

Let’s live today in the midst of crazy, normal, hard, beautiful, challenging, crazy, sad, ordinary days. And in that process of finding joy I challenge you to connect those joy moments with gratitude moments. It’s really a matter of perspective. So today, today, we’re about perspective. It’s about slowing down in the middle of a season that has the potential to make us crazy with busy and us pausing to be thankful and grateful. It’s a gratitude challenge.

This is my list of gratitude. 

I am grateful for little boys who wake in the morning, just a bit too early, who come to find me sleeping, ask if I’m awake, and tell me that they love me. And for daughters who love to cook and play games and watch silly reality television shows with their mother. And for moments around the table where we all just laugh and smile. And for the silly faces they sometimes make.

I am grateful for a family that loves me in the midst of the busy, who supports my book and speaking writing ventures, who cheers for me when I travel and cheers for me when I return, and who does the quick mom is coming home in thirty minutes let’s straighten the living room clean. I am just so thankful for an amazing family.

I am crazy grateful for the abundance of gluten free food. Let me write that again. I am thankful for the abundance and always lowering of prices gluten free food. All of this gluten free food is a blessing and makes life normal for my sweet Samuel. And with that I am humbled to be a voice in this world for gluten free/Celiac Disease awareness. What a blessing to share that life can be beautiful and to bring a message of hope.

I am unbelievably grateful for dear friends, amazing business partners, and a team of people who believe in me and encourage me in this writing, speaking, and book publishing journey. I know, without a doubt, that their investing in me truly has blessed this process and helped in grow in unbelievable ways.  Friends matter greatly and I have amazing friends. Life is a grand adventure for sure.

I am grateful for the freedom to write, the internet, the time and space to write, and most of all the community of mothers that has developed in the process. Each email, comment, tweet, like, and all of that blesses me. But more than that, to see a group of women rise up and say I am enough is a beautiful blessing in the midst. I love the interaction on the Finding Joy facebook page – how it is a page, a place that is full of mothers who know there is no perfect, only real, and support each other and love others for their bravery.

I am grateful for the opportunity to travel to Haiti this past year. Traveling there shook my perspective, opened my eyes to real joy, and changed my life. I am thankful for the women that I was blessed to work side by side with and how they taught me to truly appreciate the little things in life. I mean look at that little face – he was thankful for so much that I had forgotten to see – I will simply never see the world through the same lens.

I am grateful for the little things – the sun that shines in the window in the morning and dances on the floor in my living room, the John Deere blanket that Samuel carries around with him, the red cups at Starbucks, the box of crayons that sits on my table every single day, listening to sweet stories from my six year old, the ipod with the Oregon Trail on it, my favorite black boots that will need to be replaced, warm gloves, coffee in the morning, and the gift found in normal. I am grateful for today. And in that, want to live today with joy.

Little things matter.

In the midst of the busy, my challenge for you, right now, is to stop, and to write down your gratitude things, perhaps ten little things that matter or ten amazing big things, down. It’s easy to race through the day seeing everything we should be doing or could have been doing or forgot to do or need to do and to miss all the amazing things that we’ve done.

Don’t miss the beauty, the joy, tucked into the crevices of life. It’s the head on the shoulder moments, the I love you’s that are whispered, the notes from a friend, the smiles in the store, and the moments where you just keep on trying, loving, giving, fighting, and still seeking joy, good, and beauty.

Ten things. Write them down. Share them with me. With your friends. Challenge them to do the same. Spread gratitude.

You can do it.

#littlethingsmatter

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All photographs used by permission and credited to Hannah Nicole.
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