A New Perspective & #1,000

I am a pessimist. There, I said it. I try to justify this quality by saying I'm a "realist," but the truth is that most of the time, I see the glass half empty. My husband is above and beyond an optimist. I'm pretty sure if you look up optimist in the dictionary, you'll see Daniel Bramlett's face. You can imagine some of the fun conversations a pessimist and an optimist might have. :)

Last year some time - I honestly can't remember when - I began following a friend's blog. I've known her for years, but just 'happened' upon her blog one day. Apparently, she had recently read One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp and began a blog to document the 1,000 things in life she's thankful for. I have LOVED reading each post! And a lot of times, I've walked away thinking, "maybe I should do something similar." But then the pessimist rises up and says, "You'd never finish it, and your perfectionist side would make you feel so guilty for that!" (Oh how the mind is SUCH a battlefield!) So I just continued reading hers and left it at that.

And then my sister-in-law gave me One Thousand Gifts for Christmas. I've been reading it, and as only the Lord can do, experiencing conviction. I desperately need to be more thankful. I am BEYOND blessed - I caught a small glimpse of that when writing the post about our first 5 years of marriage. I don't want to walk through my days only focusing on the negatives. There is NO joy in that, and I am called to live an abundant life. So, it's time to begin documenting.

I didn't want to start at #1 because to me it seemed like #1 should be the thing I'm MOST thankful for, and honestly, there are too many to count, so I can't narrow it down to just one at this point. To be a little different (This type A doesn't always have to go with the flow!), I'm going to count down from 1,000. And, to not place such pressure on myself (again, it's all about the dumb battle of the brain), I will not be posting one a day. I may post 3 in one day, skip 2 or 3 days, post another, skip a week, post another - it may take 5 years to get to #1. But I will post! And I will get to #1!

Okay, with all of that said....here's #1,000

At this moment, I am thankful for imaginations. To most of us, this would be a picture of a little boy sitting on a play school bus that is WAY too small for him, wearing an Arkansas Razorback helmet. But, to my 3-year-old who has the most amazing imagination, this is a race car driver wearing his race car helmet and getting ready to drive his race car in a huge race. To top it off, this was at 7 am this morning. I'm barely thinking straight at 7 am, much less using my imagination! Thank you, Lord, for the gift of imaginations!