I am grateful for Delores today. She must have known that I have become a little discouraged, feeling very much like my Mom used to feel – slightly worthless and in my little world, like being grateful doesn’t really matter. More often than not, the only responses I receive go something like this: “I don’t always have time to read your gratefuls.” “Oh, you still write those?” or “I just scan them every once-in-a-while.” So, when we got home last night and I read the mail, there was a little card with my name on it, and I always know who it’s from, because I know that handwriting…Time stands still when there is a card from Delores. Sam could be proposing that we move to Texas or Oregon, and I’d never hear it. I have a letter from Delores and nothing else matters at the moment.

And her words were just what I needed to hear. Someone DOES still read my gratefuls. As if it mattered at all – I really do try to be grateful to the only audience that matters, my Audience of One. But, I am human after all. And I am my Mother’s daughter. We are a needy pair. We need to be needed.

I am grateful for Delores. I am grateful that she lets me know she reads my thoughts put into words in a blog. I am grateful that she is in my life. I am grateful that God placed it on her heart to write a note to me this last week, just when it was most effective.

Yes, I am grateful for K-State football, especially when it means a Sooner loss, and yes, I am grateful that today is World Series Eve and the city is buzzing. More on that in another post sometime. Not today. Today is for reflection.

I am grateful for my hearing and my eyesight and a broken-down combine.

This past weekend, I spent my time at the farm. While the majority of the time there was to be spent in the semi, keeping Sam company while his job was to haul corn and soybeans into town, it ended up that the majority of my time was spent in the pickup, parked in the drive and waiting for the guys to repair a broken auger, or something like that, in the combine. A little while became a long while, and my weekend became quite a treat.

Do you know how peaceful it can be to end up stuck at a farm all by yourself with nothing but a book?

The weather was perfection, so I rolled the windows down and was serenaded to sleep a few times by the sound of insects and an occasional buzz-by from a fly. And then, when I woke up, I got the crazy idea to use my time wisely and take a long walk down the dirt road.

As I walked, I thought of these beautiful things for which to be grateful:

•  The one-of-a-kind artistry of the hard, cracked dirt road designs
• The rustling of the grasses in the ditch
• The happy chirps and shrill music of crickets and grasshoppers and birds
• Turtledoves in a line, on a line
• The sound of crunch underfoot on the gravel road, and how the timbre of the sound changed as soon as I turned the corner onto a dirt road
• A single golden leaf fluttering along, keeping me company
• The beauty of a hedgerow, so unique and unlike any others
• Songs that play in my head: “I love the mountains, I love the rolling hills, I love the flowers, I love the daffodils…”
• The ability to hear when a new pickup was coming down the road behind me, its quiet engine barely noticeable, but at least barely
• Little grasshopper friends who held out until I was just about to step on them before they jumped – it became quite the game
• The quiet of a Sunday afternoon on a dirt road in north central Kansas
• The miracle of little centipedes crawling across the road with all of those tiny legs moving in sync
• The distant sound of a combine cutting the dried up corn stalks
• The colors of autumn leaves and green wheat fields set against the backdrop of a clear blue October sky dotted with white puffy clouds
• Time to think, time to mentally list, time to say thank you over and over again, with each step I took

And about five miles and a few hours later, I was grateful for a driver and his repaired combine, because he asked if I wanted a ride, and I had the privilege of sitting with him as he cut a field and we had time to visit about the family and his trips and the ins and outs of Harvest 2014.

So, I am grateful for this season of my life. I do not wish to go back. I love where I am and where I am headed. I am grateful for this season to be able to stop and appreciate the seemingly unimportant things, the beauty of clods of dried mud intermingled among tire tracks that lead me down a quiet road and allow me to deep breathe and enjoy those things that I once took for granted. I am grateful for the ability to smell those smells, hear the music of nature, and see the miracles that are all around us. What amazing gifts He has given…

Dust if you must, but there’s not much time,
With rivers to swim and mountains to climb,
Music to hear and books to read,
Friends to cherish and life to lead.