10,000 Gifts From God

Today I wrote down my ten thousandth gift from God!
I kind of wanted to use 10,000 exclamation points to try and communicate how excited I am, but even that wouldn’t cut it (and would be annoying for you readers) so I’ll restrain myself.

For now…

I’ve written more about my gratitude list in an older post you can read here. I’m not going to share again in this post about how I started it. Today I just want to celebrate that I have evidence of God’s love for me. Years of evidence. 10,000 pieces of evidence that God has been with me, intentionally showing me his love, holding me, protecting me, providing for me, keeping his promise to never leave or forsake me (Hebrews 13:5).

I’ve kept chronicling his presence with me for almost 8 years through:
Postpartum depression
Moving across the country
Graduating college
Foster parenting
Losing custody of our oldest son,
and getting him back again
Another depressive episode
Starting a business
Home schooling a preschooler
Anxiety attacks
Overcoming an eating disorder
Miscarriage
My brother’s death
Our 10th wedding anniversary
Giving birth to my second healthy son
Postpartum depression, again
Buying a house
The covid-19 pandemic
Publishing my book
Starting my Pastoral Counseling practice
And all the normal, every days in between

Through all these seasons and events; both traumatic, desperate pits of darkness and beautiful, rapturous heights full of golden light – Jesus has been with me. Our Father has been with me. The Holy Spirit has been with me. And they always will.

God, it feels good to not be alone.

I’m at a loss for words to explain how deeply meaningful and important the security of his presence is to me. How not being abandoned emotionally, spiritually, or otherwise heals me by proving that I really do have value regardless of my weakness and failures.

And to think – 18 years ago today I was in an inpatient adolescent psych ward, because I wanted to kill myself, because I didn’t think God wanted anything to do with me anymore.
I was wrong.
10,000 times wrong!

I don’t ever want to get over this!

You should try it! You could count 10,000 gifts! You too could have a pile of notebook archives so you never forget the ways God showed up for you. At least, the ways you noticed. There are always more than I can remember to write, but the longer we keep counting the better we get at seeing and remembering them.

I don’t have a great conclusion for this post. I’m just going to bask in this joy for now, and pray you join me because this is what God made us for.