Grateful for the Little Things

This past week, I wound up with a gland infection. It was so bad because it was pressing both on my jaw and on my ear at the same time. It was both painful to chew and made me rather dizzy. Not to mention the huge lump on the side of my head in front of my ear that made it easily noticeable that something was wrong... just ask the doctor who saw it as she walked in the door.

Rather than whine and moan about it, I saw things a whole lot differently. To start, I praised God that it wasn't anything worse. I also knew that I would be healed by His hand in time. As it is still clearing up at the time of this blog, it also opened my eyes to the small things in life that I routinely take for granted, and today, I am really grateful for them. Here are just a few in question:

1. The ability to chew food. For the past three days, I have not been able to chew any food without excruciating pain. It was so bad at times that I couldn't close my mouth... and boy, what a pretty site that is. Joelle, being the loving, good-hearted person she is, made me the most delicious chicken soup (okay... her chicken soup is always most delicious!) so that I wouldn't have to chew much. If anything, it feels great to be able to chew again. Right now, there is just a minor discomfort, but at least it's healing.
2. Shaving. There's no way I would have trusted myself to run a razor sharp object across my face when I am dizzy. I looked like a beach bum for the past few days. I went back to work with a Hawaiian Shirt as I looked the part. No one paid any mind to the fact I didn't shave (although they did notice how swollen my face still was). They were just glad to see me back in action. I may not have been all in one piece, but at least I wasn't dizzy anymore.
3. The ability to climb stairs. Talk about a real chore when you're dizzy. I don't know what was worse: going up or going down. Mind you, I almost tripped over myself going down... I probably would have preferred to do that going up if I had to. If anything, I'm just glad that I made it both up and down the stairs safely.

Those are just a few of the things that I am sure not to take for granted any more. If anything, this made me see how much I look for that one big thing in life while totally overlooking, and missing, all of these great little things in life. I'm sure if I added up all of these little things, it would make that big thing look not so big.