being thankful (a little late).

it's hard sometimes to find thanks is the busy crazy life of a college junior.  everywhere i turn there are things to be done or things to think about.  subjects to study, people to spend time with, decisions about the future to make, lots of different relationships and things to ponder and analyze, and of course the need to spend time with my Father.  it all comes at me at once when i wake up, some days a lot harder than others.  but such is life.  and i realize that once i graduate, it won't get any easier or slower.  i'll have grad school work to do (hopefully) and then a job to go to and all those adult-like things to get done.  life is not gonna slow down for me.  i need to remember to live in the now and stop looking forward into the future, where i can't see God alongside me and there are no certainties, or back to the past, where i can't change what's happened and dwelling too long only increases the pain and regret.  i need to focus on the now, the present, whether that's practicing for the choir concerts coming real soon or sitting alone in my room with nothing to do because i'm on duty or that i have 5 million things to do in 18 hours.  the only way i can do this, this living in the right now, is to notice and be thankful.  yes of course we just celebrated thanksgiving, which is a great time to show our thanks.  but i'd rather give thanks everyday, not just one out of 365.  i'm starting to keep a little journal, with things i'm thankful for.  im challenging myself to pay attention during the day, to notice the now, to record these things.  it can be a person, or the fog that gently envelops the campus, or a blessing of no rain for an event, or just that oxygen exists.  noticing these details and things helps me to stop and right my perspective.  to remember how tiny i am and how big and loving He is.  how none of this stuff exists without Him and i did nothing to help with pretty much all of it.  that i don't know what tomorrow or the next year will hold, but i know that right now i am deeply loved and there are so many things to be thankful for, even the crap, and that He will still be here with me when i wake up tomorrow and we can start again.  the more i go through and think and try to analyze things in life, the more i realize that that's not what He wants.  i don't need to analyze and figure out everything, like other people's motives (which is sometimes necessary to know but the best person to ask would be them, not myself!) or what next year will bring.  childlike faith and thankfulness for the now is what He asks, and we make that way more complicated than it needs to be.  so just breathe, and look for the little things He has already done.