It was early. I sat with a book and a blanket, watching the sky turn from dark to light, catching a glimpse of the hunters walking down the draw below our house and the horses eating alfalfa as the sun began to rise.

Opening my journal, the words “caught, let go and midway” caught my eye. A little further down the page, I read the word “redeemed,” and at the very bottom, I saw “small, smaller, smallest.” The week had been full, and I had much to reflect on and remember.

You see, I’ve been counting gifts and intentionally looking for joy for nearly a decade. At least three gifts a day, and 1,000 are counted over the course of each year, according to Ann Voskamp, author of “One Thousand Gifts.” These gifts have come in the form of words, sights, sounds, smells and even silence, and amid the past 10 years, I’ve counted, written, scribbled and penned some of the very best, along with the very worst parts of my life.

Intentional counting of the small, smaller and even smallest of things seems to truly be the largest gift in the end. They are presents just waiting to be opened, but at the same time are often the moments of our days that can be easily overlooked and rushed right by when we’re not careful. Count with intention and, suddenly, you’re catching things that mould and make your days.

I thought back on the week, wondering how another seven days had managed to slip by. I had spent hours of those days looking for ways to compensate for or redeem the things that hadn’t gone quite right. The internet had crashed, students struggled to log on to their distance learning classes, and my own two children seemed to be arguing more often than not.

I had forgotten to send an important email, I had missed a deadline and my inbox continued to pile with requests and replies. Bedding needed to be washed, dishes had piled up and the grocery list on the fridge had multiplied. Overloaded was, and still is, an understatement. I began to feel a bit defeated, inhaled in and exhaled out, remembering to count the good swirled in with the hard.

The counting of gifts has helped build a rhythm that has brought my own life into focus. It is a recording of the highs and the lows of our days, and when the rising and setting of the sun seems very much the same right now — day after day after day — it’s suddenly very obvious that it’s not. Yes, we often follow the same routines, eat the same foods and watch the same shows. But each day brings light, life and love in different forms when we’re living with our eyes wide open to what is right in front of us.

We may not be going anywhere besides the grocery store pickup line these days, and we’re most likely not traveling abroad, but we are still alive. The road is familiar in a way, but new twists, turns and even round-abouts have found us, begging to be filled with thanksgivings, frustrations, prayers, pleas and also joys.

We will eventually lose all the things we possess, but until then, how we face the heavy is what sets up apart. We can count the gifts, write down the requests, and even whisper our hurts — letting them transfigure us into people who truly believe that even in the most difficult of situations and circumstances, God is always good and we are always loved.

Wouldn’t it be an honor to reach the end of our lives and know that not only were we good at counting the good in our lives, but we were even better at counting the tough, difficult, and exhausting moments as gifts worth opening?