A Box Full of Blessings

How One Intention Turned into a Treasured Family Tradition

By Cherie Burbach

For many years, my husband traveled a lot for work, so we’d spend large portions of our week in different parts of the country. It was lonely for both of us, so we looked for ways to stay connected. We’d call and talk after our workdays, but still, they were times when I caught myself thinking about him and I had to try to focus on gratitude instead of the ache of loneliness I too often felt.

We decided to write notes of gratitude that we would put in a box and read at the end of the year. We bought small pads of paper—a different color for each of us—and we when we thought about it, we would write something down we were grateful for about our life, our marriage, and each other. The different colors helped us see how many notes we were each writing. When he would travel, my husband would take the paper with him and then drop the notes in the box when he returned.