Gratitude and Miracles

I have a list of book titles that I might use someday, whenever I get around to putting all of my scintillating words of wisdom in one place, not that it would be very long book, mind you, but one I really should use would be called "My Charmed Life," or something equally clever. I have so many little miracles happen to me all the time, that it would be fun for me to keep a record of them. Take this week, for instance. It's only two days old, and already I've had some interesting (to me) things happen. I have a pair of small loop earrings that, for whatever reason, have become my favorites. They aren't fancy, but they're the ones I wear most days, unless I'm going somewhere that I want to wear something a little more fun or pretty. It appears that I am unable to lose these things, not that I want to, but I have misplaced or temporarily lost them several times, and they always reappear, much to my joy and gratefulness. Once I lost one and couldn't imagine where it might have fallen off, but I happened to find it on the floor of my car. Another time I found one of them on the floor in the hallway of my house. Until yesterday's incident, I've even always found the little piece that the post sticks into, that probably has a name, but for the life of me nothing is coming to mind. Anyway, yesterday I was going to the UPS store to get a page laminated. I went in and waited a minute or so and then the guy asked what I needed. When I told him, he asked if I had any other errands to run, since it would take a few minutes for the laminating machine to warm up. I did need to go to the grocery store next door so I went to do that. I knew I was going to be getting quite a bit of stuff, and rather than walk the little bit of extra that it would have taken (I did, after all, have over 80 minutes of 'x' on Saturday, don'tcha know?), I decided to drive the car a little closer. Typically, when I'm walking outside, I'm looking up at the people around me. This time I happened to be looking down at the ground, when I saw an earring that looked a lot like mine. I checked my ear, and sure enough, I had lost it. I felt only a slight twinge of embarrassment that I had been walking around looking like a gypsy with only one earring, but I didn't know either of the people I'd seen, and they probably didn't notice, and if they did, who cares?, so the twinge passed rather quickly. I took off the lonely one and put them both in my purse pocket for safe keeping. I always say a little prayer of gratitude whenever that happens, because I do enjoy those earrings.
Tomorrow is Amanda's birthday. About a month ago, the twins bought some birthday cards at a neighbor's yard sale, wrote in them, and put them in envelopes so I would send them to her on her mission. Somewhere in the past month, the things got buried and yesterday they were asking me if I had sent her the cards. Oops. So I looked all over last night and this morning, tearing my room apart, not that you could tell the difference from before, but I couldn't find them anywhere. I realized that I hadn't said my morning prayers yet, so I did and asked for help to find the cards. While I was praying, the idea came to me to look in some boxes of stuff in the bedroom that I had been ignoring in my search. I went and dug through them, and sure enough, they were there, so I was able to get them in the mail to her, with a note of apology for their being a day or two late.
Then at 6:30 tonight, Daniel asked me what he was supposed to do about paying for the bus tomorrow. He will be taking some classes in SLC and commuting both ways, and I realized that I had forgotten to go up to the UTA place to buy that pass, and didn't figure there was any way I'd be able to get one before morning, so I figured we'd have to just pay the little bit of extra, and I'd need to go up to Orem on Wednesday. I called the UTA people to ask how all that worked, and in talking to the lady, I found out that they sell passes at the grocery stores also. I asked her if they'd sell them in Utah County for Trax and she said they would. So I hung up with her and called the grocery store downtown and they verified that they do sell them. After dinner I ran down to different store that was on the way, but they don't sell them. Then I went down to the other store and the girl said that she only had an Express Pass. I asked if they sometimes had the others, and she 'no' that those were all they ever carried. She asked what I needed and when I explained the situation, for some reason she kept looking in her little divided coupon holder looking thing, and lo and behold, she drew forth a Minor Monthly pass, just the thing I needed. It had the price written across the front of it, and I knew it was the one, but I waited politely while she read the back of it to make sure it would work. I was able to buy it, and now we have the pass, and I didn't have to go to Orem to get it. If I had remembered and gone to get it this morning, I would have gone up there, not knowing any different, so it all worked out perfectly. Woohoo! Yet another thing to be grateful for.
So it's being a great week so far. I was thinking about this while I was fixing dinner tonight, wondering why so many good things happen to me like this, and the thought came to me that it is because I am so grateful when they do happen. The thought was accompanied by a little tingly feeling, and I think I may have been receiving a little slice of inspiration there. I know I enjoy doing things for people who are grateful much more than for people who don't seem to be. I think sometimes people are grateful but don't show it, but I think we should. There just might be a connection between gratitude and the miracles that happen to us.

I just came across this: "And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more." D&C 78:19 Maybe I'm onto something! :)