I don’t know about you, but I tend to hinge on the bad things in life. It is something I struggle with constantly, but am trying to change. In being a caregiver, today I realized some things:

• This weekend I did not have to travel two hours to visit my mother in the nursing home; she came home this past Thursday to a familiar environment she calls home, and she is very happy to be there.
• The issue I deal with is her memory and her constant forgetfulness and my constant reminding her and repeating the same things over and over, and over and over… It could be that she does not recognize  me, like the initial diagnosis I was given of dementia would do to her erase her memory.  I help her make sure she is taking her medication, took her to church this morning, we went out for dinner and had a good time together. Things could have been dealing with her being agitated angry, showing mistrust towards me, and the like: it was not.
• My son got back home safely after flying in to spend the weekend visiting with his grandmother and me. I was thankful the planes he boarded operated properly and he was kept safe, texting me that he was home.

These are just some of the many blessings God has bestowed. I realized the complaining I do needs to be curtailed, and instead to focus on the good:

• Thank you God my vehicle is operating efficiently so I can take my mother to places she wants to go. It’s the little things we for which we take for granted and don’t acknowledge appreciation.
• While I was saddened to hear of the passing of a friend of my mother’s who she knew for decades, the same announcement could have easily been about my mother. Thank you God for your grace and giving her long life.
• Glory and honor, wisdom and power, unto our God, unto our God…Thanks for just being YOU!

So as we in the States enter into Thanksgiving Day later this week, let us mentally focus on not what has gone wrong, but what God has provided for us and our loved ones, and be thankful, ’cause you and I both know, life could be a whole lot worse, but thanks be to God whose mercies are new every morning, and great is his faithfulness to caregivers everywhere…

Happy Thanksgiving!