Finding Thanksgiving: Making it Real

 

 I'm thankful for the empty tomb and the freedom and forgiveness that emptiness purchased for me.









I'm thankful for family. For my son, Ryan, my sister, Cookie, and all the other wonderful family members who have loved me at my worst, rejoiced with me at my best, and cheered me along all my life.









I'm thankful for my Grandmother's faith. She loved missions and she lived her life on mission for Christ every day of her life. I'm thankful for the gift of prayer she imparted to me and how her frank, truth-in-love words still speak to me decades after she moved to heaven.










I'm thankful for the Word of God that is sharper than any two-edged sword. The truth in those pages continues to transform my life.

I'm thankful that, in 1989, God placed me on the farm, for the twenty-five years I raised cows, for the sheer joy of new calves in the spring, and for all the lessons I learned along the way.

I'm thankful for these spunky, funny, sweet Wonder Dogs that are so much more than companions and storyline material. 

I'm thankful for Sam Wiley and the many lessons he's taught me over the last 27 years. I'm thankful for the peace he's gained recently and the way he continues to persevere, even when life's hard.

 I'm grateful for my faithful friends, who love me through thick and thin, and for the perennials they've shared with me over the years. 

I'm grateful for the reminder that God always keeps His promises for the body of Christ, that's so much more than I can yet understand, and for the sweetness of my church home.  

I'm thankful for the call to missions that has changed my life and that God brought me to Global Outreach for this amazing season.

I'm thankful for this nation that has been blessed beyond measure and for the hope that God might, one day, make us strong in Him again.  

I'm thankful for veterans like my daddy who fought and suffered in so many ways for the freedom we hold far too lightly. I'm grateful for the ones who gave blood, limb, and life for those freedoms. 

I'm grateful for our forefathers, who established this nation on Christian principles and grateful for the promise of 1 Chronicles 7:14.

I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for the gifts of God. This is not an exhaustive list. It's a jumping-off spot for thanksgiving. Let's choose gratitude today. Tell the people you love and appreciate how grateful you are. Demonstrate thanksgiving in word and deed. Let's live as thankful people, not just today, but all year long.

It's become my tradition to read Lincoln's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation every year. Here's the link: Lincoln's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation.

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In case you missed yesterday's post, here's the link: Finding Thanksgiving: The Faith-Shield

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Finding Thanksgiving: The Future Hope

I know heaven will have streets paved with gold and pearly gates. There'll be a big crystal sea and the trees with healing-leaves. 

It all sounds beautiful, but I'm not accustomed to that kind of splendor. I just hope heaven has flowers.

Regardless, I'll be glad I'm there. 

I haven't always lived my days with the thought of heaven on my mind, but I've been to too many visitations and funerals in the last few years. These days, I hold the hope of heaven pretty close.

After the last few months of political turmoil, I'm not just hoping for heaven. I'm hoping Jesus will return and take us all home. (Well, a part of me is hoping for that. The other part of me, the part that knows we haven't gathered the harvest we were commanded to collect, hopes He'll delay.)

 This morning, I read the lovely passage in 1 Thessalonians, that describes Jesus' return. It's going to be very exciting, and just the hope of it causes a swell of gratitude in my heart. 

In case you've forgotten, here's what we anticipate with certainty:

"The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. 

Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord.

Therefore comfort one another with these words." 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 nasb

No matter what we face now, no matter how hard, there will be a day when we meet Jesus in the sky. We won't need wings, and we won't suddenly become angels. Jesus will summon us, and we'll soar right into the clouds to join Him. 

It will be glorious.

Today, I'm grateful for the hope of eternity and the hope of sky-soaring with Jesus. 

Let's be sure to thank Him for His promises of the future as we make our way through the difficult days we face. Better days are coming. Take courage, my brothers and sisters. No matter what trials we face, one day, it will all be worth it. 

In fact, the troubles of today won't matter at all, for we will see Jesus face to face and we will be changed in an instant, all troubles, all trials left far behind.

"Therefore, comfort one another with these words." 1 Thess. 4:18
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If you've been blessed by this digital ministry, prayerfully consider supporting  this outreach. Here's the link for online donations: Global Outreach Acct 4841
In case you missed yesterday's post, here's the link: Finding My Heart of Thanksgiving Again: Forgiven
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Finding the blessing

It has been a difficult few days in our area.  The tornado took a toll on all of us. If we didn't have damage to our homes or lose electricity, we probably know someone who did. There has been tremendous grief and a mountain of worry.  

In the midst of the trouble, the wound patients have found it hard to be as compliant as usual with things like eating enough protein, staying off their foot, and keeping the dressing changed as often as ordered. They've missed appointments in an attempt to avoid bad weather. It's just been a jumble at our office trying to work around the storm warnings and the storm damage. 

That might not seem like a big deal, but I am very particular about compliance so the wounds will get well quickly. (I've heard I'm pretty demanding.) Today, one of the first patients I saw immediately began making apologies for not doing what they were supposed to have done. Much to my surprise, I just smiled and said, "Oh, that's okay. It's been a hard few days. I'm not fussing at anyone this week.  You get a pass. Just do better next week." The patient was speechless for a minute, then started smiling. "Thanks!" I talked about how the wound was doing and spent the rest of our time finding out about how the storm had affected them. 

After I'd let one person off so easily, I couldn't suddenly get tough again, so I've "given passes" all day. We've had enough hard times this week.  Who wants to add a demanding doctor to everything else?  As I talked with the patients about the storm, I was surprised by how it had affected them. Some were without power. A few had lost a loved one. Some had freezers filled with food in danger of spoiling. The interesting thing was that, though most people had some kind of trouble related to the storm, they all had a blessing of some kind for which they were grateful. 

One man was a child during the tornado of 1936. He was grateful that the clean up wasn't mule-driven this time around. After he described the work back then, I was too. He'd also lived through a tornado that killed his good white horse. He was very grateful that not one of his horses was killed this time round. 

Another man was grateful for his good insurance that would reimburse him for the food in the freezer if it spoils. Everyone was grateful that their trouble hadn't been worse. 

At the end of the day, I was telling someone about the "grace in the storm" project.  As I talked, I realized I had been dispensing grace all day, and I really liked it. So, here's some grace for you: 

Do better tomorrow. 

Apologize to The Lord for your failures and just do better tomorrow. 

Grace. 

It feels good, doesn't it? Now, it's your turn. Spread some grace around.  Have fun!

The Unexpectedly Grateful Heart part 21

As you know if you read last night's blog, my son has been home from Ga. Tech for my nephew's wedding. Last night, I was grateful for the wonderful blessings unfolding in my nephew's life, his amazing new wife, and the joy of family gathered together to celebrate rather than mourn. Tonight, I'm so grateful that my son was able to come home for the wedding. I'm also grateful for His flight out of Tupelo that made it possible for us to hang out at home for a few hours. 

We arrived back in Starkville just in time for bed and, of course, awakened in time to get ready for church this morning. We actually had less than four waking hours at home, but what wonderful hours! I have missed that long lanky body stretched out on the couch chatting while I sit crossways in my big green chair, legs dangling over the arm. I have missed his blunt honesty, his eye-rolls over my little Ryan-stories, his kindness to our elderly neighbors, his big dreams that are almost within reach, and his most marvelous hugs. For nearly four hours today, I had a wonderful dose of Ryan. Best of all, it only has to sustain me for three days, when he returns for Thanksgiving holidays! Yay!!!

There is something amazing and life-altering about the love of a parent for a child, isn't there?  Totally unconditional. When my son was born, an older, wiser friend called to say, "NOW you know what love is."  She was right. It was my love for Ryan that helped me understand the greatness of my Heavenly Father's love for me. Unconditional. It shook me to my core. Until then, I had no idea what it meant that He loved me in such a way!  

There's a song that says, "How great the Father's love for us."  It always reminds me of Ryan, whose very existence helped me to see the Father's love. This evening, I'm grateful for my son and the love I've learned from him. Unconditional. It's the very love our Heavenly Father has for each of us, and I'm so grateful for that love. Aren't you?

Happy Thanksgiving, dear ones. 

The unexpectedly grateful heart part 7

There are some days that seem so crazy it's hard to believe they are real. I've had several of those lately. Anyway, so much happened today that I can't even remember it all! What I do remember is really a bit of craziness. 

A donkey got in my pasture! I didn't see this, but my neighbor told me he watched the donkey crawl on its belly under the barbed wire fence. He said the donkey had gotten lonesome wherever it is that it lives and had gone in search of some friends. (I am not making even one word of this up!) Since I have three horses in my pasture, apparently it looked like a fun place to hang out. (And it is!). Bill the Magnificent was in charge of feeding tonight, so he let the horses in the barn and in comes the donkey. I only had three open stalls, so the donkey was the odd man out. Or the odd equine out, I guess. 

No one knew what to do with the donkey. Sam (the neighbor) was supposed to call the donkey's owners but decided to leave it loose in the barn. I could not see that going any direction that was good, so I forbid the donkey to spend the night. It's Sister Saturday tomorrow and my sister and I are going to the charity sale. I will be at the barn at 4:45 tomorrow. There is no way I am dealing with a lonely runaway crawling donkey at that hour!  It was all very exciting but, at the end, it was pretty uneventful.  Sam called the owners and they came over and got their donkey. 

That donkey was an interesting diversion, but I was super thankful the owners took him home. I'm even more grateful that there won't be a donkey loose in my barn in the pre-dawn hours of Sister Saturday! 

Have a nice weekend, read lots of blog posts, and happy thanksgiving!

Unexpectedly grateful heart part 6:Becoming a Writer

The first meeting of the new Blue Springs Garden Club was tonight. My entire day had been crazy from beginning to end, so, of course, I was late arriving. The speaker had already started and I was trying desperately, but failing miserably, to make an unobtrusive entrance. As I slipped into the room where we were meeting, something on one of the end tables caught my eye. It was a copy of "The Clay Papers", my first book. I smiled and hurried to my seat. "What a kindness to not just remember that book but to display it!" I thought. It felt like a secret blessing from one friend to another. I was thrilled. Remembering all that book meant to me was completely distracting. I'm afraid I missed quite a bit of what the speaker said as I thought about the stories in that book and how I became a writer.

In the mid 90's the internet was still young. People were just beginning to have computers in their homes. It was already clear that much evil would come from this new technology and it seemed like a good idea to reclaim the technology for the Kingdom. I offered a brand new kind of service. It was an email prayer ministry for our church. People signed up and I began by sending out a verse and a little prayer starter. Before I knew it, the sentence was two, and soon became a paragraph. As you can imagine, one paragraph became two and things grew from there. 

Everything changed when I started taking pottery lessons a few years later. I was so moved by the lessons that I would think about them all the way home. As I drove, the lessons began to take shape as little stories. I would type the stories and send them as an "email extra". Pretty soon, I had an entire series. People began to make comments like, "You should put these in a book." That seemed like something that only very super-special people did, but not something that someone as common as me would ever do. 

When the pottery classes ended, I continues to write little stories about my everyday life. Before I knew it, there was a pretty big stack and I couldn't decide what to do with them all, so I started a notebook. You can guess what happened. Of course, I filled that one and started another notebook of little stories.  

Looking back, it makes me laugh. I was going to a Physician Resource Council meeting and, for some crazy reason, I stuffed a manila envelope with stories and slipped it into my suitcase. I wagged that envelope all through the meetings for several days.  In one of those crazy God-orchestrations, Susan Stevens, the editor of Physician magazine came to speak to us and was having lunch with us that last day. I was strongly impressed to give them to her, but thought I would probably die if I did. Finally, I summoned every bit of grit I had and just said I had brought some little stories and wondered if she would take a look. She was so gracious that she made my clumsy approach seem like the most reasonable action I could have taken. I cannot begin to tell you how hard it was to leave that envelope in her hands. It felt like I had cut my heart out and handed it over. Those stories were "me" and I was terrified of what she would say. 

The good news was that she could not critique them until she had read them, so there was no way I would have to face her after she'd gone through the packet. A week or so after I returned home, a letter came that looked very suspicious. I had a feeling it was "the letter". You know, the letter I'd been dreading and longing to receive. It was, indeed, the letter from Susan Stevens. I had to read it over and over to be sure. She said she had loved my stories and she had picked out two years' worth of stories for the magazine. She planned to use one each issue. Two years. I was shocked and thrilled and crying and laughing and astounded. In her letter, she called me a "wonderful writer"! I couldn't even say the words, "I am a writer."  That seemed too mysterious and wonderful to imagine, but a real editor had really said I was a writer, so maybe I really was.   

As you can tell, it turned out that I really was a writer. I wrote for Physician magazine until budget cuts cancelled it. I've written for other magazines, and newspapers, written multiple Bible studies, and finally wrote that book about the pottery lessons. These days, I'm astounded by the frequency and the sheer volume of writing I'm doing. 

What sweet memories that little book on the side table brought back! The thing I'm grateful for today is not just that I've become a writer. I'm thankful for the journey that brought me to this place, all the people who gave me a chance , all the encouraging words along the way, and those precious people who have not only read the words I've written but seen them as valuable. Thank you. 

The Unexpectedly Grateful Heart part 2

If you saw last night's confession, you know that I've decided to make an effort to have a grateful heart, regardless of the trials I encounter. I had my heart set on getting my new advent book finished and uploaded to Amazon this weekend. It didn't happen. My computer picked this weekend to have a crash party. I will spare you the gory details, but I am STILL downloading the software that I needed to be able to re-download the program that crashed. Disappointed? Yes, I am. Defeated? Discouraged? No, I am not. 

Here's my random, no-order list of thanksgivings for today:

- When I awakened at 6:00 am, it was light outside! This was particularly good because I've started feeding my livestock twice a day again, and I'm taking the morning shift. I've gone to the barn in the dark hundreds of times, but I still prefer going in the light. 

- it was a chilly morning, so I slipped into my decade-old Carhartt coveralls, and they still fit!

- I picked up the feed bucket with my right hand!!!! That may not sound like something to get excited about but I shattered a bone in my hand last Christmas and just six months ago I had contractures in my ring and pinkie fingers. Bending it at all is cause for celebration. Having the strength to actually use my hand leaves me deliriously happy!!! Talk about blessings! That is one BIG blessing!

- I lost my new glasses today. I was frantic but finally found them in the leaves on the patio. They weren't broken or scratched! Hooray!

- This morning, my pastor used the very Scripture passage that was my lifeblood more than a decade ago during the worst trial of my life. Everything was going wrong all at once, and this passage in Exodus gave me such hope. When I opened my Bible today, there was a big stain where so many tears had fallen that the ink I'd used to make a note had faded. I could see where the tears had been, but here is the amazing thing. Every tear had dried. He preached a wonderful sermon, but what I kept thinking was how I had tried to do exactly what the verses said (Be still) and God had done exactly what He said He'd do (fight for me). All these years later, every one of those tears are just dried up stains. It was like a little victory celebration right there in the back row. I did a victory dance, but since it is a Baptist church, I just did it in my head. 

- I had asked God for confirmation about something yesterday and it was already there this morning before I finished getting dressed. As I was thanking Him for His answer, I thought about how we have not because we ask not, so I asked God to surprise me somehow today (but to please make it a nice surprise). You are not going to believe it, but three hours later I had the sweetest surprise I've had in a long time. I laughed out loud at how nice our God is to me. 

I could go on and on. My computer is still downloading and my book is still not uploaded, but it was another lovely day.  I had Thanksgiving all day long! 

Unexpected Thanksgiving #1

The post this morning about Nazareth Hearts that only want to see and receive miracles has been on my mind all day. A Nazareth heart was not at all attractive to Jesus, and I certainly don't want to be like that. I want a grateful heart that finds a blessing in every trial. 

With that in mind, I have had to try harder than usual to keep a happy, grateful heart. My Mac computer has been in a mess since last night. I can't begin to explain the problem but, in a nutshell, a critical program quit working. I needed to delete that program and reinstall it. To do that I had to delete another program and reinstall it in order to install a new program so that I can reinstall the program that failed. Confusing, huh? It's been frustrating, too, but I've managed to keep my cool and find things about which to be grateful all day long. 

Here's the list, in no particular order:

- Computer Universe was my first stop. They couldn't help, but everyone agreed they would be frustrated in my situation and their compassion helped quite a bit. They did try but couldn't fix the problem.  

- Since Computer Universe couldn't help, they didn't charge me. I'd have willingly paid them because they were so nice, but I was glad for the savings. 

- I have spoken with Apple representatives off and on all day. John, Doug, Tim, and two other guys whose names I've forgotten (so sorry) were ALL super nice. They were not only apologetic, they commiserated with my misery AND assured me that they would keep trying until they had my problem fixed. I can't begin to say enough about how kind they were. 

- Even better, everyone I talked with at Apple spoke fluent English. I don't mind accents and English as a second language. People have been incredibly patient with me when I was the one attempting a second language, so I try to be patient, too. I was just glad that extra patience wasn't required today. 

- The first time I tried to reinstall the operating system, my computer told me it would take 208 hours and 42 minutes. I was not at all surprised. I do live in Rural northeast Mississippi, and my internet is not the fastest. It was a wonderful surprise, however, when my second attempt (well maybe my forty-second attempt) took considerably less time than that. 

- I had lots of errands to run today and, since the temperature was wonderfully cool, Maggie rode along. There is nothing better than Maggie as a riding companion. Everything is exciting and wonderful to her (and, therefore, to me)

- Since she was groomed Thursday, I had a nice smelling companion for errands, which is definitely a plus. 

- I arrived home with 500 pounds of feed to unload and Bill (who helps me on the farm) was at the barn! He unloaded all the feed so I didn't have to do it!! Hooray! 

-Pillsbury now makes gluten-free pizza dough in a tub, so I had a super yummy GF Gruyere, Romano, arugula, chicken, and prosciutto pizza for supper. Don't knock it until you've tried it. Delicious!! 

- To top it all off, we move the clock back an hour tonight! Extra sleep is a super wonderful thing!!

The funny thing is that, despite the frustrating difficulties with my computer (which have delayed uploading my new e-book to Amazon by two days at least), I have had wonderful blessings all day and I actually have a grateful heart. It's amazing. I chose to have a grateful heart and, in the end, that's what I've had. 

It's become a Facebook tradition to list something every day in November for which you are grateful. This month, I hope to take it a little further. I will be looking for the opportunity to give thanks in unexpected places. Why don't you try that, too?  Let me know how it goes! I can't wait to hear from you!

Happy Thanksgiving!!