Being Grateful for the Little Things

I’ve written before about cultivating an attitude of gratitude; I truly believe the world would be a different place if, instead of people carrying a sense of entitlment to all they have, we appreciate everything we have as the gift it is from our loving God.

Part of gratitude is appreciating without clinging.  I saw a link on my friend Patricia’s blog to a lovely poem by Jane Kenyon called Otherwise, a poem of gratitude for life’s simple pleasures…gratitude in the face of the recognition that those pleasures being enjoyed today will not last forever.  The poem can be read here.

As I read the poem, what came to my mind was another poem on gratefulness.  This one was written by my daughter when she was nine and what I love is the sense of gratefulness in the face of things not being quite the way we might like them to be.  It appears among the poetry on the gratefulness.org website, but here is it:

I’m Thankful

I’m thankful for my board game,
I lost the dice and pieces.
I’m thankful for my toes and feet,
Too bad they don’t fit in my cleats.

I’m thankful for my ruler,
It broke in half the other day.
I’m thankful for my puppy.
My brother let him out to play.

I’m thankful for my kitty cat,
It’s way too fat and round.
I’m thankful for my parakeet,
It’s always way too loud.

I’m thankful.

— Elena Stabile (written at age 9)