I went to the grocery store the other day with all three boys.  And glorious, glorious day... they actually did a fabulous job.  Sure one knocked down a display by accident, but no one ran off or snuck extra treats into the cart, not one of them hit a brother or cried to me about anything.  And so, as I paid for the groceries, I slipped each of my sons a cold drink as a reward.  They sat down against the wall across from our check out lane, three little butts in a row, and opened their twist off caps, with the oldest helping the youngest, and exchanged a smile.  And then, synchronized, they took a collective swig.  It was as though the world stopped spinning off it's axis, as it's been doing since I became a mother of three sons, and fell peacefully into it's intended orbit.  And all was right with the world.  

The cashier and I both stopped the transaction to take in the brotherly love.  I breathed the words "we have five minutes a day like this."  And as though on cue, one boy tormented another and the whole porcelain moment shattered with cries and fists and spilled gatorade.  I shrugged at the clerk and said, "Well, that leaves 4 minutes and 45 seconds left today.

There are moments that literally take my breath away and fill me with thanksgiving for the present and hope for the future.  Each year those moments come more quickly in succession.  Sometimes short, sometimes longer, but always manna to this Mother's heart.

One of this decade's most cherished books has been Ann Voskamp's

One Thousand Gifts:

A Dare to Live Fully

Right Where You Are

1,000 Gifts is a lifeline to the thankful heart lost amongst a dark and grumbling reality.  It's a marvelous poetic journey, leading readers straight to Praise.  I gave it to so many people this year I actually had a hard time finishing it, as I was always prompted to immediately share my only copy. Since then I have stocked up and am ready to bless whomever the Lord brings my way.

Ann's blog: http: A Holy Experience, is another avenue to receive beautiful prose and pictures from her heart, her pen, her camera.  Visit Ann regularly and I know you will be blessed.  Many other bloggers have taken up her charge to share a list of their own Thanksgivings each Monday. She calls such posts, Multitudes on Mondays.  Here is my first multitudinal slice, taken straight from the cake of my own Multitude.

Today I am deeply grateful for...

1)  God's Word and the Power of HIs Holy Spirit who brings it to life

2)  Friends to vacation with

3)  Books to read

4)  That two of my children are reading books on their own as well

5)  Dick and Jane

6)  Call of the Wild

7)  Ann Voskamp and 1.000 Gifts

8 ) Cool Summer days on the lake

9)  Afternoon sunshine

10) Above ground pools

11) Scotch tape, for my creative middle child

12) Army ants digging away in our first Ant Farm

13) A walk with my husband this morning

14) Finding a colony of ants and taking 20 of them, on our walk this morning

15) Excited squeals from 5 children when we brought the water bottle filled with creepy ants into the house.

16) The State Park beach

17) My camera

18 ) Two turtles 

19) Homemade bows and arrows with Dad

20) Tacos for dinner

21) Watermelons

22) Wrap around porches

23) Writers who touch our lives.

“Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is a proof that humans are capable of magic”

-Carl Sagan

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