40. Forty days

Waking to a tidy, uncluttered home, cool morning air, birdsong.
An intense homegrown Brandywine tomato.
A lunch guest on the balcony, with a river walk for dessert.
A heart-to-heart telephone conversation.
A pot of tea for the evening.

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THIRD DAY                                             EVENING

Thou hast given me this life to live, Thou hast appointed my lot and determined the bounds of my habitation, Thou hast surrounded me with gracious and beneficent influences, Thou hast written Thy law within my heart. 

And in my heart's most secret chamber Thou art now waiting to meet and speak with me, freely offering me Thy fellowship in spite of all my sinning. Let me now avail myself of this open road to peace of mind. ...

In Thy will, O Lord, is my peace. 

— John Baillie, A Diary of Private Prayer

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The cover blurb on John Baillie's A Diary of Private Prayer could be read as unwittingly ironic: "More Than One Million Copies In Print." 

     

I'm 40 days into this project, and 40 days is a period of reckoning, so I reckon I'll allow myself a meta-blogging moment.

     

This grew from a seven-year practice, off and on, of keeping a nightly gratitude journal, which is, essentially, a diary of private prayer. The audience there has always been solely the future me and the ever present God. Very quickly here, I noticed differences in making these lists for anyone to see. What's selected, what order it goes in, how it's composed, whether I season it overmuch with humor — consciously or not, I'm making decisions here that I don't make when I'm handwriting my gratefuls in a little bedside notebook at the end of the day. 

     

"There are corrections to our course," a wise person once told me. The 40-day mark is an occasion for correction — to continue collecting a bouquet of each day's blooms, but not to neglect the little notebook and its more specific, more private, more prayerful expressions of gratitude. 

At the end of the day, I don't want this blogging venture to distance me from the one to whom I am directing my thanks. 

What are you grateful for today? 
How do you stay focused on the big picture?