Spacious heart, gracious mind

At least that's what I think the yoga instructor said as we left class sometime after 9pm on Wednesday night, I had forgotten that they recently switched the format to a "gentle yoga" class, which this past week suited me just fine given that it was one of the more stressful work weeks that I'd had in a while.  While I normally try to skip the yoga rhetoric entirely and concentrate more on the stretching and stress-relieving techniques, I found myself following along the theme of the class and trying to focus on ways on how I could be more grateful in my life; for I certainly have much to be grateful for but stopping to think about them often gets lost in the busyness of everyday life.  I was still thinking about this during my quick 3-minute commute back home, and I remembered to check the mail since that is usually a task performed daily by the hubs, but at the time he was out of town for work.  I trudged upstairs flipping through the junk mail, and tore open a little envelope with sweet butterflies on it bearing an unfamiliar return address.   It was a thank you note no doubt written by a woman, there's a young family from our church who is going through an inconceivably difficult time as the husband (and father of small children) is losing his battle with a brain tumor.  I think we had sent them some fast food gift cards a few weeks back when someone coordinated getting them some things they were in need of.  I sat down - hard - alone in the dimness of my unlit house and wept silently.  Here is a wife and a mother struggling through the darkness days she has ever seen, and she took the time to put a stamp on a handwritten card and sent it to people they've never even met, a thank you that was not necessary; in fact, an acknowledgment that brought my self-pitying thoughts of the week to a grinding halt.   I suppose the moral of the story is not only that I should be persistent in practicing gratefulness in my own life, but I hope that we can all realize that even the small gestures we make can provide comfort to others, so let's all keep our eyes open for those opportunities, shall we?