Day 7- 30 Days of Gratitude
Gratitude #7: What challenge are you grateful for?
Challenges by their very nature are difficult, crazy-making, and sometimes painful, so, often we do not consider ourselves grateful for them. But challenges change us, often in ways we can be very grateful for.
The challenge I am most grateful for has been becoming a wife and a mother, one who would break old patterns in my family of origin and forge something new in my generation. It has meant spending my whole life making choices different to what I had ever seen, heading–sometimes blindly–into unexplored terrain, and changing myself to function in a very different way to what I knew. I am so grateful for the opportunity to become something very different than I ever thought I would be.
Since my open-heart surgery and rehab I have been challenged to exercise daily and have been doing so…averaging about 12,000 steps per day as well as stretching and arm curls, etc. in warm-ups.
I’m grateful for the challenges 50 years of marriage have brought and of raising children.
Last week I started a new challenge of cycling on my exercise bike the 24,901-mile circumference of the Earth; I’ve done 85 miles since Tuesday. I saw on the news that a 91 year-old did it in only two years; I need to up my game!
Having lived nearly 50 years with an accountant, I never had to do anything regarding our finances, accounts, etc. He loved his work, it came naturally to him, and it was easy for him. This last year has been hard on him. First, he had a cancer diagnosis [now in remission] and then a neurological diagnosis that has affected his abilities to manage our affairs. I am now learning how to take care of our finances. It is all new to me and, although I have struggled a bit, all the bills and taxes have been paid. God is so good and with His help, we have forged a trail that we have never walked before. Blessings, everyone, stay safe, and healthy.