JENNY M GUERRIER

Gratitude

Thank You, God, Architect of the impossible, for the first inhale that cracked open my ribs and taught a fist-sized heart to thunder. Thank You for lending me lungs that still borrow Your wind, for the scandalous grace that keeps refilling them even when I spend the air on complaints. Thank You for blessings that arrive disguised— broken bones that taught me mercy, empty tables that taught me hunger for You, closed doors that pushed me into wider skies. I stand barefoot in the wreckage of my own deserving and You keep dressing me in garments I didn’t sew, crowning me with love I never earned. Thank You for planting orchards inside my chest— patience ripening slow, kindness heavy on the branch, joy that bursts open and stains everything nearby. Thank You for making me a living letter, ink still wet, read aloud in the marketplace of days by strangers who suddenly remember they are beloved. Thank You for rewriting the word family until it includes the ones who share no blood but all of Your breath— these adopted brothers, these chosen sisters, this table that keeps stretching to make room. Keep the ember of this gratitude alive in us; let it outlive the turkey, the football games, the sales; let it burn when January is cruel and the year ahead looks thin. Thank You for the unspeakable transaction— Heaven bankrupt of its only Son so earth could be rich with forgiveness. Jesus, everything that is good in me is just borrowed light from You. I hand it back today, shining, multiplied, trembling— a child returning a fistful of dandelions to the One who grew the sun. And again, with all that I am— thank You.