It’s the last day of 2008 and I’m sitting in my house waiting for a whole bunch of folks to arrive to help us see in 2009. Today, of all days, I find myself being grateful for the ordinary things of life.

It’s very cold outside and the central heating is doing its ordinary job of keeping the house warm.

The lights are shining so I can see what I’m doing.

The electricity socket is charging my laptop (it woke me up beeping away last night after I left it on stand-by for a few days and the battery finally ran out of juice).

The television is playing chitty-chitty-bang-bang in the ordinary way that it does.

The walls and windows are standing where they have for the last few years keeping the wind out and the heat in.

I’m sitting on a chair in the corner of the lounge, where it ordinarily is.

This is my ordinary life.

Today I feel very conscious that for much of the world my ordinary life is completely extraordinary. These ordinary everyday things only exist in their dreams, or in the pictures of a magazine.

Sometimes I get fed-up of my ordinary and long for something different, I forget that my life is already extraordinary. My ordinary is exactly what God wants from me.

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.”

Romans 12:1

The postman had a few parcels to deliver in our cul-de-sac today.

He has become a regular visit to one of the houses in the close since Linda, who lives there, became an avid ebay bidder and seller.

Having delivered Linda’s daily rations he walked across to our house with something still in his hands. Even though I was expecting a parcel any day soon it’s still exciting to see the postman come up the path and knock on our door.

I can’t tell you what the parcel had in it because it’s a surprise for someone, which of course, just makes it even more exciting.

When the postman comes with letters it’s a bit of a lottery as to whether he is bringing something exciting, or something, how shall I put this, less than exciting. There are days when all of the letters that the poor postie has spent hours carry take only 30 seconds to travel to our paper recycling bin.

Parcels are different though, parcels are nearly always exciting. You don’t get bills as a parcel, they are never that ugly. You don’t get junk parcels, the worst I can say about a parcel is that it was disappointing.

Even if we know the parcel is coming, and that we’ve paid for it. It’s somehow like we’ve received a gift and gifts are always good to receive. It’s one of these simple pleasures in life.

Sometimes I find myself missing out on these simple pleasures. I can become so task focussed that I forget to enjoy the pleasure of receiving. It’s so easy to get the parcel, open the parcel, take out what is inside, and return to what I was doing before.

Sometimes I have to admit that I look at the present and measure it’s value to see whether it is big enough to get excited about without realising that it’s a gift. Every gift should be appreciated no matter how big or how small. I’m not sure that we should be measuring the size anyway.

I regularly come to my desk at home to find some form of picture or other artistic creation that Emily has left. It’s normally been created while she was using the computer and she’s left it there as a gift.

It’s the season of parcels and gifts, try not to miss out on them.

Try not to miss out on the gifts that are there every day. That’s what the blessings are, a gift ever day.