Early Morning Thankfulness

For the past several days I’ve been helping take care of my granddaughter who is seven weeks old today!  I have fed her and played with her for a couple of hours and now she is asleep in her swing.  She is the realization of many hopes and dreams.  This morning about 6:15 AM I came downstairs to start the coffee.  I took a look out the slider to the deck and noticed a bright red spot in the top of one of the bare trees in the next yard.  I looked more carefully and realized that the red spot was a male cardinal soaking up the newly risen sun.  In a few more weeks when the trees have burst out with leaves I would never have been able to see the cardinal.  I gave a prayer of thanksgiving for the many gifts in my life—this morning’s gift of seeing the cardinal and especially for the gift of my granddaughter.