Damn Grateful

Pain throws your heart to the ground
Love turns the whole thing around
No it won’t all go the way it should
But I know the heart of life is good…

The past few days have had this otherworldly quality about them. All the tree’s are on fire with color and they are everywhere you look. On the way to the store, out our front door, past the school, by the Dr’s office, outside Starbucks. You can’t get away from these glorious, shining creatures.
On top of that, there as been a slight breeze, a light wind if you will. The breeze blows, and the leaves fall, and all you see out your car windshield is dancing, flittering leaves caught in the sunshine.

I feel like I am in a Nora Ephron movie where everything has a glow about it and am just soaking it all in. I turn the music up in the car, drive past row after row of brilliantly beautiful tree’s and I just ball my eyes out because I am just so grateful for all this color and light. And for my little life that fits me so well.

The past year has been one of the best in so many ways, and one of the worst in so many others. A gumbo year of sorts.
Back when it began, in the cold, gray month of January, I wasn’t so sure that things were going to turn out so well. There were a lot of unknowns, and a lot of changes, and they happened so quickly. But then hope came around and love and surprises and amazing opportunities seemed to triumph over fear and disappointments and loss.
And there are still some rough patches. I won’t lie or pretend that things are A-O-K! all the time (my therapist would probably frown on that now wouldn’t he?)
But for the most part things are better than I dared hoped they would be. All I have been able to think the past few days (as I crane my neck and contort my body to see out my windows as I drive and take in all the beauty,) is just how great and loving God is.

I know I don’t talk a lot about spiritual things here on “the blog,” but that’s mostly because I am deathly afraid of being a preachy goodie goodie. I spent enough of my teenage years doing that and being that and I don’t see that it really changed anyone, it probably just annoyed them. (And really, it’s not my job to change anyone is it? But I was not so enlightened as a 14 year old baptist girl.)

So the truth is that I believe in Jesus and God and Grace for Everyone No Matter What. I believe that Love Is The Most Important Thing, Period. The rest of the stuff attached to Christianity is all debatable and full of land-mines and strong opinions and personal preferences and most of it makes we want to pull my hair out.
But the love and the grace stuff, that stuff I believe whole heartedly. With every fiber of my being. And this week, with the sun shining and the leaves dancing all around me, and the tree’s singing their enchanting song, I just want to join in and sing and dance along with them. Because there was no denying that Grace and Love and Hope are all around me, and I am just so damn grateful to be able to see it. There is just no better way to say it.