Count your blessings, name them one by one...

For the past month, I've been keeping a list of the various things that make me smile each day. I think I was probably partially inspired by the Wall of Thankfulness that some of my friends back in Jersey have in their apartment, and also by the realization that I tend to dwell more on the things I don't like about my life than the things that are really good, good enough to make me crack a smile.

And once I started, the list itself became something that made me smile. Reading back through the random small and large blessings in my life over the past month is such an awesome reminder of how God is always good, even in the middle of some pretty crappy days.

It also got me to start appreciating the little things - a lot of times the stuff on my list is so insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and yet it really did serve to brighten up my day. That doesn't mean that every day for the past month was a good day, or one where I went around smiling all day at the many blessings in my life. It just means that I was able to look past the bad and actually stop to notice the good.

So you may be wondering - what sort of stuff makes it onto a list like that? Well, here's a few of the less embarrassing items from the last month...

- flannel shirts
- singing hymns for hours with awesome friends
- listening to The World on Thunder106, then flipping to NashFM and finding
  it just starting there
- seeing Jurassic Park on the big screen
- a good burger
- and sweet potato fries
- the blurb for today's Indiana Jones/Han Solo mash-up woot shirt
- a little bit of ice cream with a whole lotta whipped cream

- Unstealthiest Ninja 4! instabuy!

- the awesome creepiness of old SPN episodes

- finishing up my last grad school class!

- the background music at Cracker Barrel is straight-up country. so much

  awesomeness.

- that moment when your turn signal is perfectly in sync with your music

- hugging Trevor!

- cuddling with a cute cat while watching an awesome ep of SPN

You get the idea. And I know a lot of that may seem trivial (and is trivial, I'll freely admit that), but I think it's a lot easier to appreciate the big blessings in life than the little ones. But if you're only noticing the big stuff, you miss out on all the little wonderful things that God sends your way every day, even on days when the world sucks or you're tired or lonely or in pain. Some days, those trivial things might be exactly what you need to remember that God is still good, and still there, no matter what. And other days, when you take the time to notice, those little things will add up so fast that you'll feel absolutely overwhelmed by blessings. And that's pretty awesome.