Let’s stop taking anything about this life for granted.

Don’t let your world have to fall apart for you to open your eyes for the first time.

Sure there is tragedy everywhere and sure everyone has something better.

But look at your life right now. Look at what’s right in front of you.

I could be wrong, but my guess is that large parts of it are devastatingly beautiful.

There is grace in the provisions we are given.

And there is meaning in the relationships we forge.

In fact, there is little else.

When I woke up in the middle of the night, as I often did, I’d walk from one room to another to gaze at my sleeping husband tangled in the sheets and my daughters surrounded by their stuffed animals, all safe. I had everything I could possibly want—yet I was failing to appreciate it. Bogged down in petty complaints and passing crises, weary of struggling with my own nature, I too often failed to comprehend the splendor of what I had. I didn’t want to keep taking these days for granted. The words of the writer Colette had haunted me for years: “What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.” I didn’t want to look back, at the end of my life or after some great catastrophe, and think, “How happy I used to be then, if only I’d realized it.”

-Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

Here are 7 things I am thankful for.

Nothing about Thanksgiving, really.

These are valid all year-round.

1. Relationships
I am thankful for family.  For all the people we don’t get to choose to be around, but for the fact that fate and eternity have joined us at the hip. Also for friends that I do not get to see enough. There is never enough time, it seems. And, of course, I am thankful for my faith and for the hope that waits beyond the grave.

2. Mornings
I am a night owl, but parenting has made me an early riser. Three hours with coffee and a few books before the rest of the house starts to wake has become a daily reset button for me.

3. Freedoms
We so easily forget how we can type anything we want on the internet, follow the faith we choose, and mostly live as we wish. Few in human history have been so lucky.

4. Jobs
I have been employed. I have been unemployed. Being employed is better. Until I can reach that coveted position of being Unemployable.

5. Service
If you can ever live outside of yourself, if only for a few hours a week, you can learn so much. Give it a try. Go volunteer once a week for a few months to work with children or the poor. You just might find part of yourself.

6. Technology
Ear tubes, vaccines, antibiotics, dentistry, indoor plumbing, AC, central heat, Advil, allergy shots, the internet. Need I go on?

7. Family Walks
I do not do this enough. But this has become one of my favorite things to do. It gets everyone outside, allows us to be together, and teaches an active lifestyle. I resolve to do this more.