• Different Kinds of Gratitude

Today I received a package in the mail of a great kitchen gadget that I've been dreaming about for a few months now, and decided to purchase a few days ago. I'm super excited to have it, but its presence here is expected and it will fit right in with all my other kitchen gear. And yet, although I'm not jumping out of my skin with excitement, I'm still thrilled to have it here and am extremely grateful that I'm able to purchase it. So that got me thinking.....

There's a lot of encouragement to be grateful, express gratitude, and show appreciation. However, appreciation - like love - doesn't look the same in every situation, and yet it can be equally powerful. Sometimes gratitude is HUGE and LOUD and EXCITING! Sometimes it's quiet, serene, and subdued.

I thought about a good analogy that would clarify it for me, and I came up with this: When you travel somewhere that you've been just dying to get to - say Disney World or Machu Pichu or the Alps or the Sahara -- you are SO EXCITED when you get there! Jumping out of your skin, full of energy, can't wait to see it all, feel it all, smell it all, experience it all, take it all in! There's appreciation pouring out of your ears, beaming from your smile and emanating from your being. You are ready to go go go and do do do and take pictures and show appreciation and tip generously and live large. It's all outward and upward and grandiose and larger than life and FUN!!

Ahhhh... and then, when you've seen it all and tasted every morsel and adored every sunset and ridden every ride and are done for that journey, you return home.

And once home, you walk in the door and want to hug your house, cuddle with your familiar cup of tea, snuggle under the best blanket ever, breathe the familiar scents of the kitchen soap and re-read every favorite book you've got sitting on your bookshelf. You can't imagine ever not having this haven to come home to, to peacefully and quietly appreciate, to love to pieces for the simple sake that it's *you*, it's familiar, it's perfect, it's HOME.

Some things we appreciate LOUDLY; other things are warmly appreciated on the inside. Neither is better nor worse; they are just two wonderful ways to love the lives we are blessed to live.

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