Gratitude for Shoes and Other Simplicities

This theme of gratitude for the little things is a recurring motif in my life lately.  I keep bumping into it...in Ann Voscamp's book, a friend's blog, a facebook post, my bible study.  Whenever that kind of repetition happens in my life I always wonder what God is up to.
This phrase, "gratitude for shoes" has been rolling around in my head since Saturday afternoon when I went to town and purchased a pair of much needed work shoes.  A small thing, not terribly expensive, not a luxury but a needed item, yet I found myself feeling extremely grateful to be carrying a box of new shoes out of the store.  I was reminded of the book, Gratitude For Shoes,  by local author Cleo Hicks Williams which I read over a year ago.  The book has much to recommend it, but I think what spoke to me, what keeps speaking to me, is the author's grateful spirit for even the smallest of blessings and a complete absence of self-pity in the midst of the harshest circumstances. 
I am convicted that deprivation of even the mildest kind sometimes tends to rake up a feeling of entitlement in me even though I am steeped in blessing.  I need teachers like the late Ms. Williams who can teach me this discpline of gratitude for shoes.