Grateful for Jellyfish

I listened to a podcast earlier this week that got me thinking about Thanksgiving. And jellyfish. And God’s amazing, immeasurable love for us. Stick with me and I’ll tie it up with a neat little bow for you, OK?

The podcast was underway as I found it but the topic was about speed, velocity and acceleration to be specific, and what scientists have recently discovered as an off-the-chart statistic. Acceleration is measured in “g’s,” as in “g-force” or “gravity.” When you think of “g’s” you might think of astronauts or sports cars but things a little bit closer to us, or below us, can also be measured. The speaker gave some examples. For instance, if you were to hold a pencil up and drop it over a desk, it will fall at approximately 1g.  A sports car will max out around 3g. (My Honda is closer to the pencil, for those of you keeping track.) But the sting receptors of a jellyfish (the mechanism that triggers a “dart-like” object to shoot out of the tentacle when provoked and sting the victim) move at one million g’s.

Off the charts. Literally.

So all this “hard to comprehend, off the charts” talk had my mind spinning and wandering this week of giving thanks. 

Boston, October 2017

Yes, I’m so very grateful for my family - my darling girl who makes my world go ‘round, my precious husband who provides for us in countless ways and is truly my best friend, the three grandparents my daughter has who love her with abundance and support and who are relatively healthy and blessed, my husband’s sister and her family and the cousins she provides my only child so she’s not so, well, only. 

PieDaddy and Calleigh, 2013

Poppa, Gamma & Cousins, December 2016

Pat and Valerie, 2002

I’m thankful I had my Mom for 30 years of my life and that she’s still with me today, just differently, and that she is able to influence my girl through photos, memories, recipes, dimples, and in innate likes and dislikes. 

I’m thankful for our jobs that provide meaningful work and financial stability. I’m thankful for the roof over our head, the cars we drive, the clothes we wear. I’m thankful for the food we have and that I, nor anyone in my family, has ever wondered from where our next meal was coming. I’m thankful to be an American and a Southerner. I’m thankful for the freedom of speech and religion and the right to bear arms. I’m grateful for our forefathers and foremothers who came before us, paving the way for the life we know today. I’m thankful for the military, past and present, who have protected our way of life and sacrificed immeasurably for our comfort. I’m thankful for pets and that I can share my home and my life with them (“dog” backwards is “God,” after all).  I’m thankful that The Crown is coming back on December 8. I’m thankful for friends — those doing well and those struggling. Those who come seeking a shoulder and those who always have a shoulder ready. Those who say, “girl, don’t even get me started.” Those who make me laugh. Those who appreciate the joy in finding a pen that writes well, a glass of wine, or some “Mommy time.”

But there is something for which I’m grateful and that without it, none of this other stuff would exist and that’s God’s love. 

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”

1 John 3:1

We know His love for us is great, maybe even immeasurable, but it’s so big we truly don’t have the capacity to understand it. Think about that for a minute.

Thanksgiving, jellyfish, God’s love. There you go. I’m thankful for each of you and wish you the warmest of Thanksgivings as you eat and spend time doing what you love.