Thankful

Today was a very good day.  It is my birthday!  My husband bought me a very nice piece of pottery and filled it with roses.  One of my daughters woke up early to bake me my very favorite recipe - super easy chocolate cake (with honey crystals - yum).  Another worked diligently on finishing up the laundry for the week and vacuuming and mopping weeks worth of dust from the floors.  My little one made me a sweet card - inside a line of colorful smiley-face stickers, outside cat stickers with some peeled off so she could "gaw a wivewr."  "Bon appetit" adorns a beautiful linen towel with embroidered fork and spoon.  I can't wait to use my new potholder, made from the same linen and dressed with gathers of blue.  Very soft.  The girls had been secretly working on them a little at a time for days.  My mother in law gave me three beautiful fashion prints framed in gold with pretty blue mats - ladies from the 1800's.  I love them.  She also gave me a check for "one for each year."  I think I'll trade it in for a watch - I want to be careful to redeem the time.  My sweet mother bought me the corner cabinet I had seen at an estate sale.  My friend treated me to a white chocolate mocha.  A crowd secretly gathered together to sing the happy birthday song.

Today was a very good day.  But it's not all that pretty stuff that matters.  It's the love that went into every thought and deed, every loving act of service.  Yes, I recognize all the MEs and MYs preceeding.  That's why I am most grateful to Him who saved me from myself!  I don't deny that I would have many happy returns of the day.  Yet I am one day closer to standing in the presence of the Creator of the Universe!  What can compare?