The Morning Letter

Every morning I go outside with my coffee and my cats and we sit at my back patio table where I write a letter to God. It's my time to give thanks and ask questions and make requests and confess fears and put it all out on the table. I write without editing, without choosing the right words, without even dotting the "i"s. I just pour stuff onto the page. My handwriting can be so atrocious that I should have become a doctor.


Each letter starts out the same way. "Dear God, Thank you..." Usually I have loads of specific things for which I give thanks. Some days, though, I can only start by writing "Thank you, thank you, thank you." and leaving it at that. On those days it's either that I'm overwhelmed with gratitude and the blessings are too numerous to count, or because I can't think of a single thing for which to be grateful. On those days, when life - even early morning life - seems dour and pointless and bleak, I dutifully write my thank you's and follow them with my questions and pleas and worries and fears demands and as I write, I begin to notice things. As I look up to contemplate my next gripe, I laugh out loud with delight at seeing a cloud in the shape of a hamburger, or a collection of weedy flowers forming the most perfect and beautiful bouquet. When I take a sip of coffee I'm delighted to find it still warm and awesome and deliciously bitter. I hear Tippy meow his kitten-sounding meow and Gray meow his robotic, creaky meow - both of which I just flat out love.

As I pour out discouragement and sadness and grief, my eyes and ears clear and my heart opens enough to notice and enjoy the blessings. They were there all along. They're there whenever I really look for them. Sometimes it's hard to do. Sometimes it feels too good to be cynical and angry. But if I'm really honest with myself, no matter that heavy, tricky, icky things are scattered through my life and I have no power to change some of those things, there are still beautiful blessings weaving their way though it all and coloring my universe if I only bother to acknowledge them. Today I give thanks for being able to wake up and count my blessings. I give thanks for being able to give thanks.