Thursday, May 6, 2010

IFankfulfor

When our kids were younger, Kelly and I tried to think of creative ways to introduce them to the Scriptures, church and what it means to have a relationship with God. In addition to modeling an open and honest prayer life, we gave them some clear structure when praying. We would guide them through a prayer that would answer the following questions:

1 - What is something you are thankful to God for?
2 - What is something you are sorry for?
3 - What do want to ask God for?

As you can imagine, the amount of random comments from this exercise produced enough laughter to make anyone's abdominal muscles scream. In order to make it even more engaging and interactive, we used a small cushy ball that we would pass back and forth. Whoever had the ball would answer a question and then would have the privilege of choosing who would go next by passing them the ball (yes, this was the coach coming out in me). Over time, the ball become known as the thankful ball. Because Harper was very young and not yet verbally "developed", she always ended up saying "IFankfulfor (I'm thankful for). The thankful ball became a staple in our house during the evenings.

Over the past few days I have been thinking about the thankful ball a lot. I am just getting over a 4 day long stomach bug. Not good! However, as bad as it has been, it has reminded me of how thankful I am for some of the simple things in life:

- Coffee! Oh how I missed you! (nope, I don't have issues)
- food with color (I'm so done with white bread, white rice and white crackers)
- the gym (I just function better with exercise)
- a healthy back (soreness, aches and pains take over after so many hours on the couch)
- food with taste (oh how I missed fruit, and vegetables, and meats and sauces, etc, etc)
- human contact (being quarantined and being kept at a distance from all people got old fast)

Although I'm not ready to reintroduce the cushy ball, I am much more aware of some of the great things in life, as simple as they may be. And really hoping I don't need another reminder anytime soon!

1 comment:

  1. I miss coffee when I'm sick, too...sometimes I convince my self that it will actually help me recover faster, so I drink it anyway. I then regret that decision.

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