A morning full of gratitude

Woke up this morning to 51 degrees - now that is my idea of perfect weather!

Said my before-I-roll-out-of-bed prayer - "God, have mercy on me, a poor sinner - and thank you for the gift of another day" - and started thinking about gratitude. And as the day has gone on, the list of things I'm grateful for has gotten longer...

First, thank you, God, for the gift of reasonable health this day. Given the way I've lived - and abused that gift - I really don't deserve it. But you've given it to me, and saved me from a number of crises where I should have been dead...so this day, I'll do my very best to undo some of the damage I've done over the years.

I'm grateful for the gift of health insurance, and for the blessed person who loaned me enough money to get insured again. The week I spent without insurance was one of the longest weeks I've endured in my life. When I went to the pharmacy today, I overheard a pharmacy staffer talking to a person who felt that Walgreen's should give him his drugs, even though his insurance won't cover them. I'm grateful, too, for enough money to pay for those prescription co-pays, today.

I'm grateful for Dr. Carl Meyer at the UC Physicians Group. He's one of the few internists I've known who actually takes the time to listen to what's going on with me, and gives me credit for having a few brain-cells that are firing. Given the changes I'm making in a number of areas related to my health, he listened to what I proposed, agreed with most of them, suggested a few alternatives, and generally made it easier to go forward with some life-style changes that have been long overdue. Good physicians are a blessing; really good physicians who care and are willing to both listen and hear are a very rare blessing indeed. Thanks, Doc.

I'm grateful to God for my spiritual partners - Sandy, Natalie, Mike, and a whole host of others who continue to hold me accountable, return my calls, and even listen to me whine (at least for a little bit, before getting their butt-kicking boots on). Whatever shreds of sanity I'm hanging onto are directly gifts from God through each one of them. I keep hoping I'll find a way to be that kind of blessing, and that kind of friend, to someone here in Chicago someplace...but it just doesn't seem to be working out, yet. I'll keep on asking the classic question, "God, is there someone who needs what I have to share?", and trusting that God will reveal who (and where, and when) that will be.

I'm grateful to God for Tom D., my partner in recovery. Finding people who are so very much different than oneself - and yet with so many things in common - is a blessing. Finding someone who is willing to "trudge the road of Happy Destiny" with me is a rare blessing...because if there is one thing I have learned to be true, it is that the joy is in the journey, and in the company along the way.

I'm ever so grateful for my family - especially my sisters Sue and Sandy. For years on end, in the depths of my old life, I did a good job of pushing both of them away from me with uncaring indifference. I don't deserve to have the kind of relationship I have with them - but I'm grateful to God that we can get together, and stay together, and have a reasonably good time doing it, too. There are so many families who will never know that kind of love...and I am so glad that I am not in one of them.

And I'm grateful, today, for the knowledge of a loving and just God, whose mercy is made new every day. To the One who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be praise, and honor and glory and power, forever and ever... Amen.