No. 13: Thankful Beyond Measure

for every bit of it.

My mom sent out a group text a month ago saying “the dress code for our Christmas card is merry and BRIGHT. The brighter the better!” so here is our little Atogwe family photo for my parents’ card and it makes me smile so hard my cheeks get sore. It’s the way I see Lema this tall and seven and am instantly relieved we have ten more years til’ seventeen. It’s Nana’s teeny tiny baby teeth constantly on full display. It’s Z’s edges, her strained “cheeeeese” and her distracted gaze constantly shifting to her cousin’s just out of frame. It’s O’s cowboy era. It’s that they’re mine.

I’ve been reflecting for weeks on what I’m most grateful for in this season and despite failing to get the whole ‘gratitude chain’ cut up and stapled in time for the kids to do it, we do end every day sharing what we’re thankful for all year round. This is what’s making my list lately:

For Fraiser and Everybody Loves Raymond and shows that instantly soothe me year after year/ for my thyroid medication that betrays me but sustains me/ for a husband who is wasn’t scared when my own questions and doubts in my faith scared me/ for our marriage counselors who lead us to Jesus and to one another/ for the plain bagels from Erin McKenna and a sister who flew home from LA with a box of five of them even though one was Everything flavor and she smelled like onion for a week/ for siblings and parents I get to do life with/ for cousins my babies consider best friends/ for olive & june nail polish remover that seems like black magic/ for the way my son smiled when we finished reading The Sorcerer’s Stone together/ for our church/ for our school/ for sanctification that has produced good fruit in me that wasn’t there this time last year/ for the bravery to leave an app that made things a whole lot easier/ for each and every one of you who open this email every friday.

I’ll leave it there at the tip of the iceberg. I hope so much that you’re reading this with a cup of coffee that’s miraculously still hot alongside a slice of leftover pie. And if gratitude still feels hard to come by today now that the stuffing has settled and the dishes have been cleared, I pray that you have the strength to enter into the marathon of this holiday season with a new perspective. It only takes ten seconds of reading news headlines to know that even to be here is reason enough to give thanks.

I’ll see you next week for the November favorites. I won’t be doing any Black Friday content this year, but I’m sure countless things in my Ultimate Gift Guide for Her post will be on sale for any of you who counted on that content from me. Have a beautiful weekend, friends.