Choosing Thankfulness

Because I sometimes (believe it or not) struggle to find something to say, and because I need reminders of God's faithfulness so desperately right now, I was flipping through old posts recently. Two years ago this month, I posted these words written by my dad. He was in the thick of treatment for pancreatic cancer when he wrote them in February of 2009. And yet he was joyfully thankful.

“Nothing that happens to the follower of Christ, to those of us who with great joy call Him Lord, takes our Savior by surprise. His brilliant and awesome foreknowledge allows Him to know every detail well in advance. That is the stuff of thanksgiving, even in the midst of pancreatic cancer…God has asked His servants to be thankful in all circumstances. Sincere obedience is often carried out in the absence of happy, joyful feelings…but He is in control, and He can take something like pancreatic cancer and use it to accomplish great eternal good…Yes, we can give thanks for pancreatic cancer because of all this and for so many other blessings that He has poured out on us…”

Yikes, I needed these words. Like a smack upside the head. The reason I can be thankful tonight is because God sent His son Jesus to die in my place, to cover my eternal destiny. Therefore, nothing takes my Savior by surprise. Every mountaintop, valley, and pit...He knew them all well in advance. And He asks me to be thankful here. And yet here I am complaining too often, when he asked my dad to be thankful for a brutal diagnosis. For pain and suffering. For death. In the midst of my ick, I am so blessed. I am not withering away from a terrible sickness...even though I often whine like I am. Lord, give me your perspective and the thankful heart that is born out of a heavenly perspective...

Random Thoughts on a Saturday

As I continue to learn new things about the human body, I am constantly blown away by God's creativity and incredible attention to detail. For example, how is it possible for this much information...

...to somehow become imprinted in a human brain in only 10 weeks? Here's to hoping all that imprinting worked well! I am so ready to put these...

away for a couple of weeks, so that I can focus on this:

The past two weeks have been full of craziness {i.e. almost passing out in the middle of giving blood for the first time. Sigh. I must have "blood donor loser" written across my forehead...}, difficulties {I thought they promised us we were done with check-offs forever?}, incredible blessings {lots of meaningful time with dear friends}, anxiety {are the words "money" and "stress" forever linked together?} and a sense of overwhelming thankfulness for all God has done and is doing in my life. I am so excited to begin this...

and I'm so thankful for lots of memories of this sweet man...

One of my biggest fears after my Dad went to heaven was that I would forget...that I would lose my remembrance of the incredible legacy he left. Recently, God has been putting this fear to rest, as hardly a day goes by when I am not thinking of or talking about my dad!

Though I don't have many insightful things to say today, I do have many things to be grateful for, including the many people who have been praying for me.

What are you thankful for today?

THANK YOU!

"Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

Sometimes, "thank-you" is inadequate to fully convey heart-deep gratitude. Often, though, "thank-you" is all I have. So today, I want to offer up a thousand "thank-yous" to treasured individuals who know the reason and are the reason my heart sings.

God has graced my life with so many incredible blessings, many through the hands, prayers, financial support, and encouragement of fellow believers. I can't possibly even know where all these blessings have come from. My prayer is that those of you who have blessed me a thousand times over will also receive an abundance of blessings from God himself!

Today, I have no other words...only THANK YOU. Thank you for serving me, praying for me, encouraging me, supporting me financially, and feeding into my life...may God make me a faithful steward of these countless blessings!

God's grace...In a thousand gifts

Today, I am celebrating Valentine's Day by counting God's love-notes to me. I am reading this book... (if you click on the image, it will take you to the author's blog)...

and the book in itself has been a grace gift from God. I needed the reminder...the reminder that we will never experience the fullness of our salvation until we are living minutes, days, LIVES of gratitude for God's continual grace to us. His grace did not stop at the cross...it is a continual gift, maybe in the form of frosty breath on windows, a hand to hold when life gets rough, gooey chocolate brownies, a slobbery peck on the cheek from a little one...

I'm learning the practice of thanksgiving...of counting God's graces, and in doing so, impregnating my life, my days, with new wonder and awareness of God's goodness. We say it so flippantly--"God is good...all the time"--but do we really believe it with our lives? It is only when I take the time to stop, to pull out a pen and my journal and write out these simple and not so simple goodnesses, that I truly understand down to my toes what those complex and yet painfully easy-to-say words mean. God is good...all the time. All the time.

And so...the counting begins. The challenge is to make out, to take hold and hold onto, a thousand grace-gifts. And yet, somehow I have a feeling that a thousand will turn into two thousand before the days of this year role into the next. Because God IS good all the time...every second and minute and hour and day. And He never grows weary of telling us, lavishing our lives with gifts of the sweetest kind. Today, my list grows, and I am thankful.


204. a new start...every day!
205. blankets piled atop my frozen-no-more toes
206. a chance to learn incredible things about the human body
207. little chocolates in a tiny red mailbox
208. a bird chirping in the creeping warmth
209. A phone call...declaring that a beautiful child of God--once an orphan, now a forever KIRK--will be coming HOME forever! (see details HERE)

my "thankful board"

He loves me...enough to tell me every day in a thousand new ways. What beautiful gifts has He given you today?