An Attitude of Gratitude Day 1: My Home and Native Land

I feel like I am trying to hard to make this post interesting.  I feel like there is this giant pressure on me from myself to miraculously produce an award winning post to make up for my lack of posting in months.  I find that when disappointments come instead of sharing them I close down and wallow for a long time.  So when Malauney invited others to join her November month of gratitude I gladly took her up on the offer.  Too much of my time I fail to recognize the beauty and the blessings of what I do have.

So for my first day of gratitude I am grateful for being Canadian.  Jonathan received in the mail a letter from the government inviting him to attend his Oath of Ceremonies to become an official Canadian around the first week of October.  The ceremony was for Halloween day.  A day that we try to always have a lot of fun as a family. Becoming an official Canadian is not an easy feat and takes years to complete so when Jonathan took his test in May and we waited and waited, fretted, silently pleaded, and finally accepted that he might have to wait a year or more to become Canadian the letter itself was something to celebrate.  My mom and Terry asked when Jonathan and I were dating if they could come to his celebration so it was wonderful to be able to have them join our little family for Jonathan's big day.  It was an interesting day where Jonathan had to be there for 9:00 am with all his papers to go over that he had all the proper documentation to become Canadian.  At 10:00 the ceremony started, I can't remember the name of the judge who performed the ceremony but it reminded me a lot of an elementary school assembly.  The judge talked about how both her parents were immigrants to Canada and how they were told that Canada was literally a country of gold; they were disappointed to realize that it actually was a country of snow.  However, the gold of Canada comes from the freedom that we have to be ourselves, to be free to worship who and what we may, to be able to have a say in how our government is run through democracy, and to be able to be equal to work and gain an education.

As a child I couldn't understand why my mom would have tears pouring from her eyes as the national anthem was sung but on Halloween day at a Canadian citizenship ceremony I finally understood as the tears poured from my eyes.  How grateful I am to live in Canada.  I have never had to face the fears of living in danger or on the run, I have always been treated as an equal to others, I have obtained an education, I can vote, I can drive and I am safe.  My daughter is safe and has a promised future.  So today as Jessa and I supported Hubbins as he became a Canadian citizen my heart swelled not with pride but with gratitude for  a loving heavenly father who allowed me to live in a free land with amazing blessings and opportunities.