Thankful Thursday

I was convinced today was Friday. No matter how many times I was reminded it was Thursday, some part of me really wanted it to be Friday. It's not like I didn't try my hardest to make that happen. Yesterday I scheduled an appointment with a student for today and today when that student showed up, I saw that I had put them on my calendar for Friday. Sigh...

Despite it not being Friday, I woke up this morning feeling just really good and thankful. Do you ever have a morning like that? Where you wake up and you just feel like you should be thanking someone for the morning? Today was that morning for me. In fact, so much that I texted my sister Kim, "Do you ever have a morning where you wake up so thankful and happy that you have to thank someone for it?" My youngest sister Kim, God bless her, is a person I know I can always go to with my impulsive emotional rants and feelings never having to censor myself. Sometimes she responds, depending on how long my rant is, with a "you're overwhelming me again" or sometimes, like this morning, she responds in the affirmative with a "yeah".  Victory! Whenever, Kim identifies with one of my random thoughts, it means I could be on to something. Anyway, yeah, I had no reason to be feeling all thankful this morning. I accidentally set my alarm too early (thinking it was a Friday when I had to go in at 9am instead of a Thursday when I have to go in at 10am). I snoozed my alarm no fewer than 3 times which meant none of my extra sleep really counted as quality. And I had A TON of work to do today.

BUT I am so thankful for each and every one of my students. I never dreamed I could be so happy doing something that isn't "counseling", but my students teach me things I don't know every day and they challenge me in ways I haven't yet been challenged. I am so thankful for the past 4 months in which I've slowly adapted to living in a city which is, honestly, something I never thought I would do.

Maybe Christmastime will do that to you....give you random thankful moments. I had the day off on Monday and I was wandering around Chinatown exploring the city, which I feel safe enough to do in the daytime. I was stopped by a guy with the UN Refugee Agency asking for monthly donations. Well, first he tried to help me figure out how to properly work my new iphone since I looked lost, but then I asked him to tell me about what he was doing there that day and he told me about all of the refugees fleeing war and famine in the world and I had heard about Syria, but what about Mali and Somalia and all of the other stories that aren't covered by our media?

There is this other side of thankfulness. It's the recognition that you are blessed and that you have the ability to bless others.