Just sayin’.

It’s pretty funny how “just sayin’” has become an ending to random thoughts.

My gratefuls are fairly random thoughts more often than not. It’s just that my mind is swimming, as a woman’s mind tends to do, and I rarely have long stretches of time to formulate ONE thought into a detailed acknowledgment of my thanks. So, random thoughts they are…while I’m swimming.

I am grateful for people in my life, even ones I do not know personally but observe from a distance, who reach out and touch and bless others because it is the right thing to do. Because God has called them to something beyond themselves. Three of them brought tears to my eyes this morning. They don’t really know me, but they blessed me today, and my day has been easier because of them.

I am grateful for a young man named Austin who needed some community service time for his leadership class in middle school and just showed up at the assisted living facility where I volunteer to help out with dinner one night, and then realized it was Bingo time and stayed to help me call numbers. And that’s all fine and dandy and good for him to score some points for community service, but then, he returned on Tuesday night just because. Just because he saw a group of elderly people who desire nothing more than time and attention, and he saw a place to serve.

I am grateful for Sam, because his hours are filled with work and projects, but he takes the time to go to Bingo and give a little love to Betty and Jim and Avis and Louene and Cindy and Ruth and Ken…and me. And he takes the time to help someone who is in the middle of a traumatic and life-changing move, because it’s the right thing to do, and because his heart is as big as Dallas.

I am grateful for Tequila Harry’s. It’s a little restaurant in our neighborhood that my Dad thought was a bar. It has a bar in it, but most restaurants do these days. This is the kind of place that is like Cheers, and if we keep going every week, I’m sure one of these days when we walk in, we’re going to hear a rousing, “Sam!” from the regulars. But this little place hires the best kids – not kids, really, but young men and women. Every week when we go for our taco and burrito dinner, we end up having the BEST waiter or waitress. They are attentive, they are friendly, they are prompt, and they each have a story willing to share with us. These kids all attend college full time. They work to pay their way. They have dreams and aspirations. And they serve us. So I am grateful for each one of them, willing to work hard and share a little of themselves with this middle-aged couple.

Speaking of serving, I am grateful for Ivory. He can be found at McDonalds, sweeping and mopping, wiping down tables, hosing down the parking lot, taking out trash, or quietly sharing his incredible life story in snippets to anyone willing to stop and visit and ask his details. He began his career at the young age of six, picking cotton in Mississippi. At the spry age of 76, he loves his job at McDonalds. I would too, if I had to pick cotton at the age of six. I think I would love a job at McDonalds anyway, but especially if I had to pick cotton first. I am grateful that Ivory chooses to serve in this way, because he touches lives and does so without fanfare.

And last, I am grateful for the bites of celery I had mid-morning to keep me from eating Cheezits.