A Little Perspective

With feeling so down today, I realized that I need to return to the lessons I've been learning lately.  The two predominant ones are of gratitude and service.  These two things, above all else, seem to put life back into perspective.  So, today I need to create a list of the things I'm thankful for (in no particular order)...

I am thankful for:

• patient, smart, understanding, trusting parents who raised me and set a good example that I can lean on now.
• wonderful children who teach me more about life and make me stretch into someone I couldn't have ever become without them.
• the perspective that life is a journey and that there are always turns in the road--there are lows and highs and things are always changing.
• a loving, living Heavenly Father who knows me personally and sends me little reminders that He's aware of me.
• a home to live in that fits our needs and keeps us safe and warm.
• my husband's job that keeps clothes on our backs, food on our table, shelter over our heads and some of the pleasures of life, but just the right amount so we are learning to draw a line.
• safety.
• rain that makes the grass green and helps the flowers grow.
• sun that warms me and cheers me from the outside in.
• great people in my life that inspire me and teach me that life can just get better and better.
• each new day in which I can do better than yesterday.
• forgiveness.
• a husband who was intended just for me; who is patient; and whom I get to figure out how to live with and love for the rest of eternity.
• an understanding of the gospel--to know that this life is not the end.
• the keys to a happy life that I learn through prophets' words.