Gratitude

So I haven't written in two whole weeks. And for a few months before that, let's face it, most of my writing hasn't been terribly interesting or exciting.

Some of this is due to the mental and physical fatigue that's bound to occur when you're raising three busy kids while incubating a fourth. But a lot of it is just keeping my thoughts to myself.

Its not that there hasn't been plenty going on. Its not that I haven't had quite a few interesting insights, conversations and revelations. I just don't know how to share most of them, or if I even can. I just feel like keeping them to myself for now. There is a tendency in today's world for over-sharing. There are thoughts I've tried very hard to communicate because I think they can serve a purpose beyond myself, but there's always that wariness about giving too much away. Too many people do that, and often I think its done with little thought to the consequences that may follow--not only for themselves, but for others.

October was a very, very good month for us. I got out more in October than in the previous six months combined. We went on two all-evening child-free dates in one month! That's more dates than we often have in 10 months. But it was also a very stressful, tense month for us and for many of the people we care most about. Lindsay has been a contentious place the last several weeks, and so we needed all the fun, I think, to help maintain some sanity in the midst of the opposition and tension. There had to be some balance.

I wasn't sure I wanted to live in Lindsay when I first got here. Now I am so in love with my friends, my ward, the life we have most of the time, that it's hard to imagine having made any other choice. I know there were many good reasons we came here, not all of which we could've possibly known when we made the decision. I'm grateful that this is where our life has brought us. In the midst of the vitriol and opposition, I looked around at those who were there to say "thank you" to many others for the hard work they've done; I saw how many people were willing to face an ugly confrontation in order to stand by their friends; I realized that, though we sometimes lose sight of it when climbing a hard hill, most people are still basically good and decent and courageous.

I start my month of Thanksgiving with a fervent prayer of gratitude for the friends that the Lord has placed in my life, and how they have shown me how to be the person I want to be simply by being the people that they are. I am truly blessed.