thankful

today i was watching a new (to me) tv show on TLC called mystery diagnosis. the family in the story today had a 4 month old baby with a condition that was causing her to cry. they first thought it was meningitis. they described the spinal tap that she had to have and the agonizing wait to find out the results. all of these things i could definitely relate to. but this is where things changed. for them this was the beginning of a long road. their baby did not have meningitis. she had some other rare disease. she needed a bone marrow transplant which came from one of their other children. but her body rejected the transplant causing the little girl to become gravely ill. they spent 100 days in the hospital. she ended up leaving the hospital ok, but the ordeal caused her to loose her eye sight. why do you share all of this you ask? it just hit me that while our hospital stay was difficult and scary, things could have been MUCH worse. i am very thankful for the fact that madeline is fine. i still do not wish to repeat the hospital stay, but i am so thankful for the gift of healthy, happy children. thank you Lord for your blessings... the big ones and the small ones.