More Thankfulness

Eeek!

I just realized that I need to update my Thankful Journal again!

I've been preoccupied lately and for that I'm sorry, because being thankful, to me, ushers in joy and also kicks out depression and sorrows......

It's something I really need to do right now!

Just let me say that, for me, it is SO hard to narrow down things to be thankful for! What I mean by that is I am so abundantly blessed inside of just the four walls of my humble and small home! As I listen to my almost 18 year old son blissfully snore on the couch in deep sleep, and as I think that each room in this house is bursting at the seams with love and children, I realize again how hard it is for me to just pick one thing a day that I'm thankful for.....

So I will go against the grain and pick many things!

1. My Home: To start out this edition of Thankfulness, I will say I'm thankful for my house, all 1400 square feet of the tiny structure!! Yes, we are crowded! Yes, it is close and there isn't a lot of wiggle room! And yes, we only have one bathroom for 10 people, but it is our mansion and we're happy to have it.
2. Video Cameras: I'm so thankful for our video camera, which is just the video camera in our little cheap camera, because with it the children can document lives, make little movies and Dave and I have an everlasting record of our children and how they've grown and how silly and intelligent and creative and appreciative they are.  This is priceless to me.
3. Organic Chocolate: I'm thankful for organic chocolate because I often crave sweets and chocolate is almost always my choice! I'm thankful because I can pretty easily get a chocolate bar or chocolate chips to bake with.  I do think that it is a very real threat that organic farming and private gardens will be banned some day very soon, so I'm enjoying that taste of sweet, rich goodness.
4. Warmth: I'm thankful for our natural gas fireplace that looks like the real thing.  It's so comforting to sit by the fire and feel the soft warmth of the flame and to be able to adjust the level of heat.  It's a beautiful fireplace and I'm so humbled and grateful that my husband chose 11 years ago to switch over to natural gas.
5. And on the same note, I'm thankful for my natural gas stove.  Seriously, cooking with natural gas is superior to every other method out there.  I've cooked on electric stoves and convection ovens, and to me, natural gas comes out the winner due to the fast cooking and the real heat which is there at the turn of a dial.  My oven is accurate and never unreliable.
6. Pennie's Coat: Recently my dear friend met me at a resale shop in her neck of the woods, where she had traded some of our clothing in for me. I ended up getting a surprisingly large amount of credit for them.  What's more, the day she met me there was Veteran's Day, and the owner was having a 50% off day.  Everything in the store was 50% off!!! So I was able to get Pennie the most adorable puffy brown winter coat with a hood trimmed in fir for $2.50!! Now that's a bargain!
7. Tenderhearted People: When I brought my enormous load of clothing up to the counter at the resale shop mentioned above, I was nervous because when I shop I always go over the total amount of credit I have and at this particular time in our lives we are not able to afford anything beyond the bare necessities, so, as the stack of clothing I had picked out grew smaller and the total grew larger, I just knew I was going to have to put a lot of it back.  Well, at the end of the tallying, I owed $29.00! My heart sank.  My cheeks flamed! I realized I didn't have my debit card and that there was no money in our account anyway, so I began to sift through the things to start putting them back, when my friend Jen pulled out HER credit slip that she was going to use for HER children and gave it to me! The tears that were threatening to fall due to having to abase myself to put things back almost began falling right there in front of of a whole store of people! After her credit was subtracted I still owed $5.00. I offered to sweep floors or clean windows, but the owner insisted that I forget about it and take all of my purchases home.  She was so sweet and at this point, the tears I had been holding back DID fall! In a world of busyness and rushing, in a culture of selfishness and entitlement, I am so thankful for tenderhearted people!!
8. Good Books: I'm such a bookaholic! I love to read! I'm thankful for that.  Right now I'm reading Michael Phillips' "Rift In Time", and it is SO fantastic! I'd read it before many years ago, but my son picked it to do a book report on, so I decided to read it again.  It's gripping! It's chilling. It's action packed! It's thought provoking! It's also extremely well written and very relevant.  I fear I'm reading it much faster than my son, who is constantly asking me where it is so he can do his report!! Ha.
9. My Husband's Old Work Car: I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd ever hear those words come out of my mouth! Alas, I am extremely thankful for the old 5-seater 1987 Pontiac 6000! It was my husband's grandmothers, who gave it to my husband's father when she moved in with them many years ago.  After she died, my husband's dad had no use for it so he gave it to Husband.  It's got 127,000 miles on it.  Right now our van is out of commission indefinitely, so to have this car is a blessing from the Lord! Yes, it's old.  There is no upholstery on the ceiling.  The gearshift slips.  There are no visors.  The speedometer is broken.  The seats in front are torn and the back door doesn't open, but we have a car.  Yes, we have to take two trips when we want to go anywhere as a family, but we have a car! Yes, I have to take Husband to work and pick him up, but we have a car! The thing runs like a top and so, I'm thankful for it.  I know that I will appreciate my hot rod red Mama Ride Van SO much more when/if it is fixed, but for now, I tool around town in the Pontiac!
10. And last but not least, I'm thankful for Protection. Over and over in the Bible the Lord promises to protect us and keep us and surround us and defend us.  I'm seeing this in my life and I'm also trying to trust that.  I'm trying to remember that He never breaks His promises like man does.  He is not man.  He neither sleeps nor slumbers and He's always on the job.  He promises to be the shade at our right hand and to shelter us under His wings.  I'm working on believing that and taking Him at His word.  When I'm constantly in the Word I find this reaffirmed time and again.

Thanks for hanging in there while I recorded my long list of blessings!