I am thankful... I am thankful for the things we so often never as Americans give a second thought to. I haven't always been thankful for these things I'm about to mention, but if life has taught me anything it has taught me above all else, be thankful...
I had nothing to do with the fact that I was born here with the many blessings I sit here enjoying today. It's called grace=unmerited favor.
I saw a picture this morning that reminded me of love that gives sacrificially...I can hear the one boy saying to the other even now, "I'll wear the left one, you wear the right one, that way we each have at least one and together we will always make a pair."
My goodness, if that isn't love! When I say those words, "if that isn't love", I'm reminded of my favorite hymn we sang as a choir in that baptist church growing up by that title. It talks about how Jesus left the splendor of heaven knowing his destiny was the lonely hill of Golgotha, there to lay down his life for me...If that isn't love, the ocean is dry, if that isn't love, there's no stars in the sky... I still love that song! If you know it, you'll now be humming it all day thanks to me ;-)... if you don't google it!
You and I may have never had to share a pair of shoes and probably never will, but we can be thankful, so thankful for love like that and first and foremost for a savior who really did leave an amazing place called heaven where I believe the streets really are paved with gold, or something even better we've never seen, and he really did lay his life down for me and you to live a beautiful life of purpose. I believe he really did get up out of that grave on the third day so that me and you could get up out of any death causing thing of this life.
So today, I'm most thankful for Jesus my Redeemer, the one who gave me a second chance and third chance and... you get the point, but he gave me the opportunity to live again. He's so good!
I'm thankful for two amazing, beautiful-inside and outside- daughters...
I'm thankful for a family who loves and supports me and each other. We're tight and that's the way I like it...
I'm thankful for the sun that shines down on my deck today...it's almost 60 already!!
I'm thankful for Wal-mart who has employed me for 18 years on Dec 1! and so thankful for a very understanding manager when it comes to this single mom shared custody scheduling stuff!!!
I'm thankful for a toilet...that flushes, that gets dirty and gets clogged, but most of the time it flushes...so thankful!
I'm thankful for a bed, a warm cozy bed and Elizabeth's stuffed animal bear that she left behind for me to snuggle with over the next few days.
I'm thankful for a home, a washer and dryer, a dishwasher even, running water-good drinkable running water...
Food, Stop Hunger Now who gives food to those without, greenhouses behind the school in the Segera that provide food and funding for the teachers there. Electricity, lights I can cut on and cut off...heat when it's cold and ac when it's hot...
Coffee...Coffee...Coffee!!!! God bless the coffee farmers all over the world! I love the fruit of you labor!
Firepits, fireplaces, bondfires, campfires...I love the look, smell and sound of a good fire.
A car...
My healing...my healing that has taken place and is taking place...
Shoes on my feet, both my feet...
I really could sit here all day. I'm sure you could too. We are blessed. We are both so very blessed not just for the material things we have been given, but also for the eternal things. The things we can't see here on earth...
I'm reminded that today I enjoy my blessings because of a God who says, "My ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts" so there's possibly a reason, I may not always think of, as to why I have been so blessed. Why you have been so blessed...Could it possibly be that today, this Thanksgiving Day 2015 you and I begin to think deeply, think a little higher, ponder for a moment as we give thanks that we, maybe we have been blessed to be a blessing to someone else...What would our good God have us to pass on...Peace, love, kindness, a pair of shoes, a coat, a turkey...whatever it is pass it on...be a blessing. It's not about me being blessed. It's not about you being blessed. It's about using what we have to be a blessing...
Happy Thanksgiving as we find ways to pass it on!
Lenee
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