Today is a special day. Not only is Thankful Thursday, but this is the 200th post I’ve published on this blog. That’s a lot of words, friends.

I’ve had this little space for more than four years, but I’ve only become serious and about blogging and more focused in my topics for the past 18 months. I’ve thought several times about going back and taking down some of my oldest posts, which feel so different from what I write now, but I can never bring myself to do it. Because I’m thankful for where I’ve been and I’m thankful for where I am now.

Blogging has opened doors for me – not in the big, exciting money-making kind of way, but in terms of relationships. I’ve made friends in the past few years, genuine friends-of-the-heart, whom I never would have met if it weren’t for our blogs. Working out my feelings and my faith in this space has given me the courage to grow and to change, to have hard and necessary conversations and to become more of the person I’m meant to be.

I am so deeply thankful to all of you who read what I write here and take the time to interact, to be a part of my life. Your encouragement, advice, compassion, and kindness are inspiring to me. Whether you are someone who has been here for a while or someone who is visiting for the first time, please know how genuinely grateful I am for you.

In the spirit of thankfulness, I wanted to share two of my favorite pieces on gratitude from some far better writers than I. The first is a poem by the great e.e. cummings and the second is a passage from a book of essays by Andre Dubus that I share here every year on Thanksgiving.

I Thank You God for Most This Amazing

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

-e. e. cummings

This passage comes from Andre Dubus’ essay “A Country Road Song.” At the age of 49, Dubus suffered a devastating injury when he stopped on the side of the road to assist with a fatal automobile accident. While pulling the survivor out of the wreckage, he was hit by another car. He was injured so badly that he eventually lost one of his legs and was paralyzed in the other. This essay is about his memories of running.  If you have a chance, you should read the entire essay because it is so much better than just this excerpt.

“When I ran, when I walked, there was no time: there was only my body, my breath, the trees and hills and sky…I always felt grateful, but I did not know it was gratitude and so I never thanked God. Eight years ago, on a starlight night in July, a car hit me…and in September a surgeon cut off my left leg… It is now time to sing of my gratitude: for legs and hills and trees and seasons…I mourn this, and I sing in gratitude for loving this, and in gratitude for all the roads I ran on and walked on, for the hills I climbed and descended, for trees and grass and sky, and for being spared losing running and walking sooner than I did: ten years sooner, or eight seasons, or three; or one day.”

I hope today you are reminded of some simple graces in your life as I have been reminded of how undeservedly blessed I am to have this space to share with all of you.