choices

i know i'm a little late on the thanksgiving posts, but it's still november, so i am in the clear. right? ok, good.

so this year, i am thankful for choices. i think a lot of times i dwell on what i don't love about my life at a particular moment in time. but when i step back and look, i realize i am only dwelling on the negative because i have a genuine choice or opportunity to go a different direction. those choices may not always be realistic or possible in the moment, but they are there.

i am thankful that jason has a job that provided us with the choice for me to work or not. i am thankful that i found a job that i like and had the opportunity to make a choice of working or not.

i am thankful for the choices of doctors that we have for hiba. i am thankful that we were able to make the choice to get her tested, to have her evaluated, and for the resources that made that all possible.

i am thankful that i can choose where i want to live. i am thankful that, even though i don't love everything about the house we have, it is because we have the choice to look at other houses. i am thankful that i can choose to run the heater at night or use a big down comforter. i am thankful that i can choose which warm pjs to put on my kids. i am thankful that i can choose if we want to have them share a room or have their own rooms. i am thankful that i can choose which house project i want to do first.

i am thankful that we can choose how to save our money. not just how to spend our money, because there is a lot of room to make fun choices there as well. but how to save it, as well. i am thankful that we have dreams and ideas of things to do, things that will create memories and a fun life for us and our kids, and that we get to choose which of those to pursue at a certain time.

i am thankful that we can choose what treatment options we want for hiba. i am thankful that we live in a place that has so many different options available to choose from. i am thankful that we have the ability to choose where she goes, what she needs, and how we think we can help her best.

i am thankful that i get to choose how to give our time and money. sometimes it seems overwhelming, all of the good things we want to support. but i am so thankful that we have the time and money to help support some things and that we have to make the choices about who and what we support. i am thankful for the thoughtfulness and conversations that those choices bring, and the way they help me look at my life and see what is important to me.

i'm sure there are a lot more choices that i make everyday, without even realizing how lucky i am to have to make those choices. there are the obvious things like what food to eat, what clothes to wear, how high to have the heater on in the car, if i want to go out to lunch or not, what tv show i want to watch. but i am also thankful for the less obvious choices. like realizing that i get to choose to pay for our sewer line instead of going on vacation, but i don't have to choose between paying that and eating. i get to choose to keep our crv, even though i don't like it, but i don't have to choose between walking and riding a bus. i get to choose to be content in our house right now even though there are more exciting choices that we may get to make down the road - choices that will take work and may seem annoying, but that are choices that so many people don't get to make.

now the challenge is to continue to be thankful for those choices. to continue to be content with what i have, when i have it, and realize how blessed i am, even when i have to choose between two things that i really want. most of the time those are not two things that i need, but things that i want. choices of leisure is not something that i want to take for granted, and something that i often do. so i am thankful for all the choices in my life and hope to continue to focus on the fact that i have choices, not the fact that i don't always get everything that i want.