The flavors and textures of gratitude are many. There’s the quick and sharp relief gratitude that the red ant which got in my hair while sweeping the courtyard didn’t bite me. There’s the bone deep, breath-stopping gratitude of seeing pictures from my 16 year old niece’s car accident and knowing she miraculously got out with functioning legs. There’s the humming gratitude of birds bouncing around in the trees and the lightly sweet gratitude, like a cream puff, of listening to my children deep into their imaginative play. And there’s bubbling gratitude which bursts out when someone says something unexpectedly funny.

Today I am carrying a tender gratitude toward our staff and team here in Cambodia. Last Sunday we risked going to church in-person for the second time in almost two years. The next day we got an email from the pastor that he had tested positive for Covid. We did our due diligence and self-quarantined for 5 days, testing negative on our rapid tests on Friday. We picked up groceries on Saturday and Charlotte went to soccer practice, masked and open-air. Then school told us to test the girls on Monday before they could attend school on Tuesday. So we did. Charlotte and Charles tested positive.

Symptoms have been slowly building – Charles is heavily congested in his chest. Charlotte is sniffling. Catherine started fever. Now I have a low grade fever.

And our team has been texting and praying and dropping off soup. The offers for help come faster than I can think of things we need.

Being vulnerable and being loved leaves a tender gratitude throughout my body. I think it was my 7th grade science teacher, talking about bacteria in petri dishes who told us that just like bacteria can’t grow in a petri dish without food, discouragement cannot grow in us when we foster gratitude. While this certainly does not seem to be absolutely true in my experience (I’m quite capable of being both discouraged and grateful…especially when it comes to Covid!), I still find it helpful during times of discouragement.

So we will quarantine and eat soup and savor the flavors of gratitude for those things which are going right in the world.