Portland, Oregon - from The Joy Team

1.
On the beach this week, I find a heart-shaped stone, and then another, and another. I feel silly and self-conscious, wondering, Is this love, or am I just desperate for a sign?

2.
In a quiet room, we meet. We're 10 minutes into talking when I realize nothing I say can change her pain. So we write about one good thing that happened this week. It takes just five minutes for us to settle into a singular memory and ride that joy for an entire hour.

3.
Sometimes I read my horoscope late at night to see if forecast matched reality.

4.
I'm reading aloud when unexpectedly my voice cracks and tears follow. While I don't fully understand what I've read, something registers:

"But there is another class of men," writes Frederick Buechner, "at their very best they are poets, at their worst artful dodgers — for whom the idea and the experience, the idea and the image, remain inseparable, and it is somewhere in this class that I belong."

5.
In a rush of traffic, I'm anxious. I'm not looking for a sign when I spot a real one, a billboard of just three words: "You are enough."

It's Thankful Thursday. Please join me in a weekly pause to express gratitude for people, places, signs and more. What are you thankful for today?