An attitude called joy!

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

Melody Beattie

Joy....is an attitude! There are days when we all need to be reminded of this! Watching these grateful beauties dance and sing reminded me of just what I have to be grateful for......the warmth of a heater in my trusty little car on a chilly spring day.....good food at my fingertips that tastes much better than the pickin's from this cornfield.....hot coffee to sip while I soak in the golden silence of this day well wasted.....and my best friend to share the journey with! It's not often in life we get to watch someone....or something....jump for pure joy...but what a lesson can be found there! To watch the sandhills crane leap and prance and preen in the sunlight is to see life lived with a joyful attitude. They take nothing for granted...they find joy in sunshine and rain....they savor a kernel of grain as if it where a gourmet meal. The haunting song they sing speaks of their gratitude...for one more day and one more meal and one more partner to dance with. It is so easy for us to spend our days listing all the ways we've been slighted or hurt.....to sink so deep in our own dark pool of misery that we miss the fact that our own worst enemy looking right back at us... is us! There comes a day when we notice the lack of positive in our life.....and realize just how little we search for joy...for faith....or for love. There comes a day when we realize we've forgotten to enjoy the journey ....and we wonder just how many miles on that winding road are left. So....for today...and for tomorrow...and for as long as it takes, I'll stop to photograph the crocuses ...and watch the cranes....and gaze with awe at a mountain top. I'll say a little prayer of gratitude for my family... and my friends...for the life I've been given.....I'll go to work a little happier, hold a hand a little longer, touch a heart with emotions just a little deeper...... and try a little harder at remembering that joy...pure, simple joy...is an attitude I treasure!