Gratitude: Thankful for the Little Things

@JeanneTakenaka

The phone rang. It was Hubs. “Honey. I’m in a bit of a panic. I’m at my first flight layover, and I can’t find my passport. Can you check my desk to see if it’s there?”

My husband, world-traveler that he is, had made this trip to the far East many times. My heart dropped when I heard his words, and I sprinted to his office. The edge of his passport peeked out from beneath a short, elevated pile of papers. 

Even as I told him the news, relief and dismay poured through me. How did this happen when he has never forgotten his passport before? Was he going to lose a day of work to travel all the way home and pick up his document? 

“I’ll call you back in a little while.”

I prayed and knew I had to leave this in God’s hands. I sure couldn’t do anything to help him. 

Thirty minutes later, he called. God had shown my husband a way to get to his destination without a need for his passport . . . with an overnight stay in Hawaii.

I praised God! His family lives in Hawaii. He’d spend some time with his parents before he traveled to his work destination, and see his father, who had recently had surgery. During his layover on his way to Hawaii, he tried to reach his mother, his brothers, but no one answered their phones. 

I went about my day, managing the boys’ events and praying for his trip . . . and marveling at how God worked that out. 

Early the next morning, my husband called to let me know his father had passed away the preceding night. As tears filled my eyes and cinched my heart, I marveled again at how the Lord had intervened and diverted my husband to Hawaii. He was able to be with his family the night his father passed from this world into the next. 

Though this was so painful, it was a tender display of God’s grace, sovereignty, and love. I had no idea how a small action of forgetting his passport would lead to my husband being where he needed to be when he needed to be there. I thank God for the little ways He intervenes in our lives. 

I’m a firm believer in the truth of this quote from Robert Brault. Small things happen, and we often have no perspective in the moment of how significant that event can be.

At the end of many of his trips, Hubs would stop in Hawaii to spend time with his parents. We thank God for these close family relationships, never knowing when our loved ones will be gone.

Subtle gestures of love can minister in a time when life as he has known it is permanently altered. Sure, there are big ways to love, but it’s often those thoughtful acts, those intentional choices, that bear the greatest significance. 

We live out many seemingly inconsequential moments in our lives, so many minor happenings. Maybe you’re like me and tend to take them at face value.

Or, can maybe we see how those small acts of kindness, those small events, those small decisions in a day turned out to be the most significant details in a life, in a relationship.

I’m so grateful God knows our needs, even when we don’t know them ourselves. As we walk through this month into the holiday season, toward the end of a year and of a decade, may we enjoy the small moments and value each one.

What about you? What helps you to enjoy the little things? What small things are you grateful for?

Click to Tweet: Small things happen, and we often have no perspective in the moment of how significant the event can be.

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