Experience Life As A Gift

 “Gratitude is the ability to experience life as a gift....” 

― John Ortberg

Peanut Thief

Whatever we are waiting for – peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance – it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.

~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

Print Available - HERE 

Be Grateful

Be grateful for the kindly friends 

that walk along your way; 

 Be grateful for the skies of blue 

that smile from day to day; 

 Be grateful for the health you own, 

the work you find to do, 

 For round about you there are men less fortunate than you. 

 Be grateful for the growing trees, 

the roses soon to bloom, 

 The tenderness of kindly hearts 

that shared your days of gloom; 

 Be grateful for the morning dew, 

the grass beneath your feet, 

The soft caresses of your babes and all their laughter sweet. 

Acquire the grateful habit, 

learn to see how blest you are, 

How much there is to gladden life, 

how little life to mar! 

And what if rain shall fall today 

and you with grief are sad; 

Be grateful that you can recall the joys that you have had.

- Edgar Guest



Print Available - HERE 

Female Downy Woodpecker

As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. 

They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness -- just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.

 — Laura Ingalls Wilder

Grateful

Male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker hanging on the suet feeder on a rainy day.  

When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude. 

— G.K. Chesterton

A Feast of Berries

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.

 ~ Melody Beattie

Print Available - HERE 

Thankful

Goldfinch Couple - Heritage Park - Blacksburg VA

Every day is a day to be thankful. Life's abundance has no limit, and gratitude is what keeps that abundance flowing. In every circumstance there is something for which to be thankful. Even when there seems to be nothing else, there is hope. 

~ Ralph Marston

Print Available - HERE 

Hummingbird in the Flowers

For today and its blessings, I owe the world an attitude of gratitude.

~ Unknown

A Version of this available 
as a Fine Art Print/Canvas/Card - HERE