Appreciate You Lord — I

Years ago, Elias wouldn’t have said those words. Back then, appreciation felt like a luxury he couldn't afford. He had been a man of "more." More hours at the mill meant more money; more money meant a bigger house; a bigger house meant—he thought—more happiness. He spent his youth chasing a horizon that kept receding, fueled by a restless ambition that left him blind to the treasures already in his pockets.

As the coffee in his mug vanished, Elias stood up, his joints popping like dry kindling. He looked at the modest life spread out before him—the small garden, the stack of firewood, the path leading to the woods. It wasn't the life he had planned as a young man, but it was the life he had been given. And in the giving, there was a grace he had once been too busy to see. I Appreciate You Lord

The sun hadn’t even cleared the jagged silhouette of the hills when Elias sat on his porch, a chipped ceramic mug of coffee warming his calloused hands. At seventy-two, his body was a roadmap of a life lived hard—scars from the timber mill, the stiff gait of a man who had walked through more valleys than mountaintops, and eyes that had seen both the blooming of love and the gray ash of loss. Years ago, Elias wouldn’t have said those words