Just Another Boring Day -- Gratitude in Everything

As I type this it is December 29, 2021. We have just received news that two people shot and killed a Wayne County Sheriff’s deputy and then continued to hijack a truck driver, shoot another driver and take a hostage. Our thoughts and prayers turn to all who are involved.

And now my heart turns to gratitude for the boring, the mundane, the routine. Too many times it is easy to yawn at our everyday lives and wish for a vacation, a change, something exciting. Then we hear of an exciting but tragic situation and remember how precious our everyday lives are. We know that many of the people involved in today’s events would have been happy to return to their usual routine.

Can you remember a tough situation you were in? While you were in that situation, did you dream of returning to “normal”?

The most scared I have been in my entire life was the winter of my senior year of college. I was leaving my parents home near Bloomington, Illinois, to drive back to Ohio for school. When I got to Danville, snow was lightly blowing over the road. By the time I got into Indiana, I was engulfed in a serious snow storm. I pulled off in a small city to get a hotel room. All the rooms were full. A father was begging the hotel clerk to allow his family to stay in the lobby. I decided to drive eight miles to the next city.

After I got back on the interstate, the storm intensified to complete white out conditions. I was crawling along at 8 miles per hour. I looked out my side window at one point and noticed that the signs on the side of the road were too far away. I had been driving in the median without knowing it. When I came upon a state trooper helping a disabled vehicle, I wanted to stop and beg him to take me to safety. I knew he was not there for me though, so I kept slowly driving to the next town. Finally, after over an hour, I reached an exit with a truck stop. Semis lined the entire off-ramp. I reached the restaurant where I used a phone card to call my parents long-distance from a phone at the table. This was before cell phones were common. The gratitude I felt for an uncomfortable situation, sitting at a table in a truck stop restaurant all night, was immense.

I am sure that you have been through a harrowing situation a time or two in your life. Whether it was physically or emotionally tough, we all have these experiences.

When we remember those truly tough times, or even the less awful but still inconvenient times, we can be filled for gratitude for now. We can feel joy for the errands we have to run, the homework that needs to be finished, even the laundry that needs to be washed.

May you enjoy the mundane and routine today.