God Sightings

"Wouldn't it be great," he suggested, "if we intentionally looked back on each day for God's hand in it? You know...God Sightings."

At the thought, I smiled as a memory immediately played through my mind. We were moving from our first house and had rented a mid-size moving truck because surely our junk would all fit in a mid-size, and opting for the smaller truck would be a monetary savings. But oh how I whined and complained and threw a hissy fit when Mark called me from the rental facility to tell me that our reservation was seemingly meaningless: they had not actually reserved a truck for us. Our schedule was thrown off as they tried to find a vehicle for us. In the end, the moving company gave us--for the price of the mid-size truck--the largest truck because that was the only truck available in their lot. And later as we packed that truck full of our belongings, we realized the mid-size truck would not have been adequate.

That was a God sighting and one I always remember with a smile. God does have a sense of humor, doesn't He?

A couple years have passed since my husband's suggestion that we be intentional in our looking for God in our days. Because He is in all of our days, in every moment. It's just that we don't open our eyes to see Him in everything. We take it for granted that He's there. Worse, sometimes we just forget He's there.

I've been reading Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts...and have been incredibly blessed and challenged by it. Counting the blessings, the gifts, seeing the beautiful even in the ugly. Taking note of the God Sightings.

I hear my children complain daily about schoolwork, meals, activities, inconveniences, toys they don't have. And I get annoyed at them. "Stop complaining and be thankful," I tell them. But when I stop to think about it, I realize: They learned that from me. I complain about the weather, the kids, the inconveniences of life, the things I don't have. How would our family be different if I had, from the beginning, practiced this giving thanks, replacing complaining with gratitude, counting my blessings?

I want to take on this challenge. I actually did a couple years ago, but before I even got to #12, the old life of grumbling and complaining took over, and I abandoned the life of gratitude. I want to give it another try; keeping at it for a longer period of time makes it habit. Can you imagine living a life where gratitude and counting blessings is habit?

Counting down up my blessings at A Thousand Blessings.