Today's Thankful Heart - Dec 14th

Wow! It has been awhile since I've posted on any of my blogs. I've not forgotten to be thankful, just haven't had much time to be online.

Today I'm thankful because:

• I only have one more quarter end with crazy hours to make it through before my job transfer at work is complete.
• God is still walking beside me (sometimes carrying me) even when things are so crazy in my life that I don't have time to blog or even journal! Even those times when I've let the busyness of life interfere with my time with Him. He is so amazing faithful and gracious.
• My family is healthy and we are looking forward to spending a wonderful Christmas together. The kids understand that things are a bit tight this year, but they are more excited about the wrapping gifts and giving them than they are about getting them anyway (for the most part!)
• Spending Thanksgiving with family. We took the kids up to my hubby's grandparents this year. I was a bit worried about us all being in their small house and how they would handle the kids, especially the boys. However, I need not have worried. We had a wonderful time!
• Eggnog - I found some vanilla spice egg nog. Yummy!!!!

Thankful Turkey Hands and Adoration

Today I am thankful for seeing fruit of the Lord in my daughter's life. This evening as I was doing some stuff around the house I overheard my 7 yr old daughter with the boys (ages 4 and 2 1/2). She was teaching them adoration.

At our church house and at our homeschool co-op she has learned about the ABC's of adoration. At the co-op each week they focus on one letter of the alphabet. They discuss words starting with that letter which describe God. They then praise God for these traits through prayer and worship. After they each have a sheet of paper with the letter and they get to color and draw those things on the paper. They are keeping them in a binder and by the time the year is done they will have an entire binder of Adoration.

I happened to help out last Friday in her class - the letter was L. They came up with Love, Lion, Light, Lamp, and Lamb. (I think that was all of them)

I was so thankful that my daughter not only understood the concept of devotion and adoration, but she was teaching it to my sons as well. It warmed my heart to hear them together speaking about God.

She told me later that every Wednesday night she wants to do adoration and a craft with the boys. She wants to do the teaching herself which includes planning the craft, helping them with it, doing the adoration and doing some Bible reading.

Tonight she had them tracing their hands and then cut out the hands to make turkeys which they taped together in a long line. She then asked them what they were thankful for and wrote it on each turkey. It is now hanging on the boys' door. The picture below is the turkey "wreath" she helped them with and her own turkey that she made last night. She had told me she was going to write on it what she was thankful for. Later that night I found it on the boy's door with their names listed on it.

Thanksgiving produces Joy: Today's Thankful Heart - Nov 10th

Below is an excerpt from Chapter 4 (Thanksgiving produces Joy) of the book I'm currently reading Created to be His Helpmeet.

Open your mouth and begin to thank God for his grace towards you. Thank him for every good thing that he has brought into your life. Thank him, thank him and thank him again. Joy is the result of a thankful heart. A thankful heart is the result of a person who decides to give thanks. So say, "Thank you God for. . ."

So that is what I'm doing tonight. I'll share a few of them here, but I'll continue throughout this night until I fall asleep to thank God for all the things he has given me and done in my life.

• I'm thankful I have an aunt who loves me enough to recommend this book to me and who gave me her copy to read.
• I'm thankful for a husband who shows me everyday in his own little ways how much he loves me.
• I'm thankful for three beautiful children who greet me with so much love and enthusiasm each evening when I get home
• I'm thankful for a husband who is so committed to my children and what is best for them.
• I'm thankful for a husband who is so stubborn that he has not given up on us or our marriage, no matter how ugly and difficult it has been at time over the past 13 years.
• I'm thankful for a husband who makes it very clear that he still finds me attractive after 13 years and some extra pounds (I'm not giving that number away!)
• I'm thankful that my daughter is a daddy's girl, just like I was growing up and I'm thankful that she has a wonderful loving father. I still remember as soon as we found out that we were having a girl, Shaun stopped on the way home by Babies R Us and bought an outfit that said "Daddy's Girl" for her to wear home from the hospital.
• I'm thankful to see how much my boys look up to their father, how much they watch all that he does and try to imitate him.

The rule of life for wives

I'm reading Chapter 4 in the Helpmeet book today. Here is a quote that I came across that made me stop and examine how I've been living my life -

This, then, is the rule of life for wives: Live with thanksgiving, forgiveness, and joy, and enjoy all your moments as if they were your last. Someday, soon enough, they will be.

Hmm . . . I can't say that I've lived my marriage this way, let alone my life. How much would my marriage, my children and my life change if I could get this down?

I recently was part of a Bible Study called One Month to Live and this same concept came up, although written a bit diffrently. In the end though it was the same thing. All of my relationships in life whether it be as a wife, a mother, a daughter, a friend or even with my God - they all change dramatically when I decide to change my perspective and live in this manner.