From Gratitude to Generosity

Now would seem like the most appropriate holiday to show you my completed art project. This is the wall in our dining room. Our family tree. Finally, this room is beginng to become uniquely ours as in our last.

I'm grateful for the each breath I take and the gift of each day I wake. I'm grateful for my husband who has become my second breath. I could not exist as the woman I am today without him. I'm grateful for my intelligent and energetic children who daily amaze and inspire me. I'm grateful for my sisters who will always know me better than anyone else (and for those women who've become like sisters to me and will spend the rest of their lives getting to know me despite myself). I'm grateful for my family. I'm grateful for a warm home and the great joy of cooking tasty food. I'm grateful to live in a free country where I can work, live, and play for the benefit of my family.

But gratitude is not enough. These amazing gifts require more from me. Not only am I to accept them grateful, but I must nurture them warmly and responsibly, I must share them with love, charity, and justice, and I must seek to return them to God abundantly.

"What return shall I make for all the good the LORD has done for me?" Psalm 116:12