grace connections and lotteries

Dawn barely whispers across a dark sky and children still slumber sweetly beneath white downy coverlets.  I wake softly amidst a silent house with the thought of grace connections.  I call grace connections those wonderful human relationships that arrive as gifts into our lives, fully formed and intact.  Of course they evolve and change over time but they also don't seem to require much human effort to sustain them or maintain.  There are lots of other kinds of relationships: ones that begin with newness and develop into familiarity, ones that are riddled with awkwardness or tension or apprehensions.  They are all gifts and opportunities in their own right but those aren't the connections that stirred me from my slumber this morning.
As I lay in my bed I was overcome with gratitude.  I have so many grace connections in my life, too many to list.  So many human lotteries, who have arrived full and by some mystery of unmerited good, their love and friendship showers blessings into my life time and again.
I read about lottery winners who are overcome by stress and depression and loss when faced with all the money they could hope for. I wonder how many of us would prefer to maintain our stories of limitation or lack or suffering instead of embracing the freedom and unbounded love present in each moment.  It is human I suppose and then there is grace.  Grace.  A lottery of sublime proportions.
As I lay in bed, in this beautiful home, in this welcoming town, in this blessed life, I realize that I have won the lottery in so many ways and in so many people and am just beginning to fully see it, to trust it, and to live it.
Thank you.