gratitude, thankfulness . . . and taking things for granted

It always amazes me how easy it is to take something you have for granted. Often without realizing you have done so. It just seems so simple, so normal, that it becomes something you never think about and just assume will always be there, until one times it is not. And in those moments, you realize that you take it for granted.

Last night was one of those times. I am visiting my sister and brother-in-law in Saskatchewan last night. Late afternoon I went to use the sink and turned the tap to find that no water would come out. A little bit of asking around revealed that a water line had been hit by a crew working and the entire town was without water. Annoying, as I had just eaten a cinnamon bun and my hands were rather sticky, but they were already working on fixing it, so no big deal. Or so we thought . . . they got water back on for most of the town pretty quick, but of course not where we were staying. Now we get to about seven hours without water in the taps. That is annoying . . . there is a lot of stuff you need running water for.

Running water . . . in our Western World that is normal. We expect it. We know that when we turn the tap water will come out. And that assurance of it being there means we take it for granted. And we do not know what to do when we turn on the tap and nothing comes out.

This got me thinking about how many other things in my life I take for granted that they will always be there.

Running water . . .

Electricity . . .

Heat . . .

Air conditioning or fans . . .

Gas for my car . . .

A roof over my head . . .

A safe place to sleep each night . . .

More than enough clothes for every season . . .

Food to eat . . .

For me, in my world, those are things that are always there. Yet, for others, they are not. Going for a few hours without running water reminded me of the need to be thankful that I can rely on these things to be there.

Having just had Thanksgiving I realized that these are things that are not even things I would think of. If someone had asked me on Thanksgiving what I was thankful for, I would have said family and friends. Good things to be thankful for. I have been truly blessed in that area of my life. But, sometimes I think we need the reminder that some of these other things we assume will be there and that we so easily take for granted are things we should also be thankful for.

So, what about you? What are you thankful for? What do you take for granted in your life, that you maybe need to stop and take a few moments to express your thankfulness to God for?