Today We Walk (How to Breathe Gratitude)
We walk together,
six children and I,
under a sky of dark beckoning.
We talk of hopes, of stories, of games,
we let dreams fall down with the rain and
watch,
and see,
each drop, dry land touched by magic,
turning seemingly eternal brown to green, and
everywhere
children laugh and wonder if we skipped winter and
went straight to spring.
Home’s warmth and scents welcome us,
fire glowing and fresh bread waiting,
wet clothes strewn and dry clothes on
or not and
books,
always books,
and tea and toys and.
And.
Sometimes I’m so wrapped up
in this or that or what he said or she thinks or
this happening or that or can I believe this or.
Or.
So wrapped up and these moments,
these simple, perfect moments are
lost. Today, we walked and rain fell.
Today, the littlest beauty danced around naked
over and over
and wrapped herself in afghan and snuggled
in my arms.
Today, my 18-year-old twins needed to be heard,
their stories and plans,
their unwavering desire for fairness, their frustrations.
Today we ate homemade bread covered in butter and
it crumbled hot, some in mouth and some into the carpet, and
it was perfection and a mess,
and it takes mindfulness to
notice that often perfection is.
Today we walked. Tomorrow we will walk.
Daily, we will walk. Same path. Every day will hold
perfection, and every day will be messy, and
every day, I will need to stop being wrapped up so
I can grab these moments.
Because.
The moments become the years.
And all the years that we weave the bits and pieces together:
the stories,
the meals,
the candles,
the chores,
the tears,
the snuggles,
the disagreements,
the conversations,
the torn-up math pages,
the driving,
the bedtime songs,
the prayers,
the reading lessons,
the repetitive things,
the difficult things,
every single bit that we pour out from beginning to end,
every time we feel like we’re falling,
but we pick ourselves back up and start again,
every little thing, all of it,
is because of this:
we do it because one day we won’t anymore.
It’s these moments that make a life.
So, in these moments, I breathe gratitude.
So, in these moments, I deeply feel the presence of God.
Meet Amy Hughes
Amy Hughes is the author of the book Words Like Honey: How to Avoid Unintentional Harm, Model Kindness, and Nurture Your Child’s Faith Through What You Say. She is a mother of nine, a writer, a speaker, and a parenting coach living on the central coast of California. A featured writer for Wild + Free, Amy is a sought-after keynote and conference speaker and has been published in Scary Mommy, (in)Courage, Simplify Magazine, The Fallow House, The Natural Family, Rhythm of the Home, Christian Unschooling, and more. She reads too many books and drinks too much coffee, plus she thinks she’s incredibly funny. She lives in Paso Robles, California.
Where to find her . . .
Begin Within is a series to inspire a year-round lifestyle of gratitude that will impact not only your own life, but the lives of your neighbors as well. Gratitude is a theme we talk about often around here because it ties so closely into other missional living rhythms. Practicing gratitude reminds to keep our hearts soft and expectant and our eyes open. Therefore, the more we embrace gratitude, the easier it becomes to truly see our neighbors and where we can join what God is already doing in our neighborhoods.
If you would like to contribute to Begin Within, you can find the submission guidelines here.
