A few days before our 2 year olds birthday, he had an accident and split the bottom of his chin open. This happens to be the same child who has had a dislocated elbow and a broken arm, all within the last year. It also happened to be the only child who had no insurance. Therefore, the visit cost $300. After spending 5 hours at the urgent care on my husband's only day off and more money than we wanted, that night we all still found something to be thankful for at dinner. I remember being thankful that the 9 year old was giving the 2 year old his bath because I was completely exhausted.
As the month dragged on, it seemed as if I was tired and well just plain old grouchy. And so I was feeling like I had to stretch to find things I was thankful for. However, the kids and my husband seemed each day to complete the task easily. They were thankful for things related to Thanksgiving, relatives, god's word, the dr. who stitched up our little guy, and the list went on.
Then we had another incident at our home. The very next day after having his stitches removed, the 2 year old broke his clavicle bone by jumping out of his bed. Now, I know all mothers have mom guilt and when our children are hurt we automatically think of how we could have prevented the situation. So when you have a child that has dislocated an elbow, broken an arm, had stitches, and broken his clavicle bone all within one year you start to feel like a pretty crummy mommy. I was consumed with all of the things I was doing wrong as a mother (which could be a whole different blog post) and how my children may be better off if I went back to work. You could say the guilt was interferring with my "thankful" attitude.
On top of the horrible feelings of guilt that were eating me up, there was also the fact that this child still had no insurance. The visit cost us another $200 and we were leaving for vacation the next day. I don't remember if I wrote down anything to be thankful for that night. I was frustrated and felt like we couldn't quite catch a break. Other events happened in the month that just made it feel like it was one of those bumpy months in life. But it didn't seem to phase the rest of my family. My husband became upset a few times when it seemed like something else was going wrong. But he let it roll off better than I did. He didn't seem to let it carry over.
When I reflected back on the month of November and our Gratitude bucket, I realized that the rest of my family knew what it was to be truly grateful. They were thankful whatever the situation and they were not just saying what they were thankful for or trying to think of something different to be appreciative of each day, they were truly thankful in their hearts.
At the end of the month, we read our thankful notes from our Gratitude bucket. It was fun to see what had been written down. But you know who had the most notes in the bucket? There was a person who seemed to have not have missed a day. The 9 year old, the one who was originally the least excited turned out to have the most grateful heart. He had put down so many wonderful things like his brothers, his parents, his cousins, the dog we dogsit, god, and his grandpa. His writing was on more papers than anyone elses because not only did he himself have the most notes but he wrote down things for his little brother as well.
Many people say children are ungrateful but maybe they are just not being asked to express their gratitude. Maybe children truly have a thankful heart but they learn to be ungrateful by watching the adults surrounding them. All I know is I pride myself on being an appreciative person and believe that I am thankful for all of the blessings in my life. However, instead of teaching my children how to be appreciative for what they have, I in turn learned how to be thankful....... no matter what the circumstances.
Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
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