grateful

happy thanksgiving eve! i’ve been trying to hone in this week especially on the deep gratitude i feel for so, so, so many blessings and joys in my life. as i’ve considered the things i am very most thankful for, i’ve realized that the core of my gratitude is most certainly about relationships. truly, the best part about life is people, and the immensely beautiful and sweet and unique and wonderful bonds that we form spirit-to-spirit.

and so today i went through some wedding photos, looking at the faces of those humans i love most – and i was brim, brim, brim with acute gratitude.

i am so thankful for each member of my family. look at these faces! {missing a few here – there are indeed eight more shining faces that i feel so much gratitude for.}
and i’m so thankful for each member of the second family that the boy gave me. i love these people so very much.

i am so thankful for my incredible parents, and the incredible parents of my true love. i can’t even wrap my head around the magnitude of the gratitude i feel for these each of them – their sacrifice, support, examples.
 
i’m so thankful for my siblings, each of whom i unabashedly and completely adore.

and for siblings-in-law, who gift me with generous love and care and new perspectives and stellar examples of true goodness.

i’m so thankful for all these women. how insanely lucky am i to have this sisterhood?!

and man oh man, i am sure so thankful for these little people, who bring so much simple joy to my life. nieces and nephews have been my obsession since i was eleven years old, and now i have thirty five! they are each such a gift to me. {missing a few in these photos!}

i’m so thankful for dear, dear friends. our celebratory dinner the evening of our wedding was filled with our closest, very most beloved friends. and i’ve never been quite so overwhelmed with love and gratitude than on that october night when i had a clear view of almost every person on this planet i am most thankful for.

i’m so thankful for the friendship of these women. when i look at these photos of me with my bridesmaids, i am flooded with tender memories from different stages of life with these true, true friends.
 
and, of course, most of all among human relationships, i am so thankful for the boy. pretty much every single night, as i thank god for my ian, i am choked up by the intense gratitude i feel for him, for our love, for our marriage that is refining and a profound joy. i truly cannot believe how much i love ian wright, and how overwhelmingly thankful i am for him.
     

indeed, i am outrageously blessed with good people and good relationships. this thanksgiving, and hopefully more and more every single day of the year, i give hearty thanks.

{wedding photography by lindsey stewart of green apple photography – click to see more from our wedding}