Thankful Thirty #1

Source: upliftconsulting.com via Cee on Pinterest

November could not have come at a better time for me with all it's thoughts of thankfulness.  Please join me this month as I focus daily on something in my life deserving a moment of extra gratitude.

Every once in a while something we've taken for granted or not paid attention to at all becomes strikingly meaningful.  This happened for me two months ago as I sat at home, awake late at night with my newborn babies miles away in our hospital NICU unit.  Watching television as a distraction, I watched a March of Dimes commercial intently for the very first time.  Never before I had really paid attention because never before had I considered the family the March of Dimes was helping could be mine.

It happened to me again this week as I watched live coverage of Superstorm Sandy hitting the eastern United States.  I was struggling with the feeling that this magnificently devastating storm was not moving me like I thought it would if it was happening somewhere else in the world.  And then came the images of precious but struggling newborn babies being evacuated at the height of the hurricane from the NICU unit of NYU Langone Medical Center.

This is the image that really did it for me...

Source: People.com

An ordinary nurse suddenly thrust into an extraordinary situation, curling over her tiny precious charge as together they brave the harsh elements raging all around them.

 It has reminded me today how grateful I am for the NICU nurses that so attentively watched over my little Jax and Lucca 24 hours a day for 16 days while I was unable to be with them.  Clocking in each day for a 12 hour shift where their sole responsibility was to make sure our defenseless wee ones had any possible thing they would need.  And assuring me that entrusting them with my two newest gifts from heaven was the way it needed to be.

Today I am grateful for those people in the world

who choose to live each day in the service of the littlest and weakest among us.