Thirty Days of Thankfulness-A Countdown: 10

10. (ten, oh my goodness! Hooray!)
Today I am thankful for the gift of presence. (not to be misread as the gift of presents). But presence is a present. An increasingly difficult gift to receive or to give in our rude, interrupted society. Rude seems a harsh term, but our children demand our attention, our computers demand our attention, our cell phones (texts, phone calls, social media updates) demand our attention, even my microwave demands my attention. In all this chaos, there is a sweet serenity of undistracted intentional attention. A gift, when given and received, that creates such closeness between friends.
Today I was gifted with such sweet time with a friend who has moved away to a different town. We have not been able to visit for over a year in person, she with a new baby, I with new commitments and two of my three young ones in school.
And? Our children played for the most part without needing our attention and we could be attentive and speak and listen and it was so wonderful!
The time flew by, and we edified and enriched and encouraged and empathized and all of this without checking our phones or the clock or the computer.
We were able to just "be" with each other in the comfort of my living room and catch up and share thoughts and ideas and dreams.
Truly, this is a gift that our older generations still represent much better than we do and we must must MUST not let it go. We need to model the gift of presence to this next generation or it will be lost in the demanding model of society today.
I am blessed to have several friends that are gifted in presence. My husband is well gifted as he does not have the habit of interrupting nor does he have a smart phone and he best expresses love in "Quality Time" (5 Love Languages).
I hope the next time I see you, I can present you with the gift of presence as well.
:)