LIVE A LIFE OF NO REGRETS!!: Thanksgiving

Quote from "Stepping Heavenward" by Mrs. E. Prentiss

"She says I shall now have one mouth more to fill and two feet the more to shoe, more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure or visiting, reading, music and drawing.

Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other.

Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which dwells is worthy of all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other dear darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, wondrously blest!"

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Thanksgiving

This month I have purposed to find things to be thankful about each day. I've tried to post these ponderings on my facebook page. Because I love to write, I often think of a ton of things each day I'd like to put into words that I never quite get around to. As I sat down tonight to purposely throw out some thoughts on the page, so to speak, I must admit I've decided to visit an old memory.

Thankfulness is not a thing I struggle with because I truly am overwhelmed with the blessings God has given me in this life and know how unworthy I am of it all. Not that I don't have to purpose to choose to be thankful at times that are difficult or purposely make choices to rejoice when my flesh would like to choose differently. I truly am still a work in progress. (Thank you Lord; You haven't quit on me!!) One of my favorite times that God taught me thankfulness was during a Bible Conference at Grace Fellowship. I was soo sick, again. Yep, pregnant and nauseous was I. My pregnancies didn't consist of morning sickness. They were all day and sometimes all night sickness. The illness lasted from 16 to 40 weeks. Jack Taylor was teaching on being thankful even for the difficult things that come our way in life. Well, as he was preaching, my body was telling my mind to run or be very embarrassed. I ran out the door to the bathroom and was relieved to have listened and made it in time. As I was hugging the toilet, I decided even in this I need to choose to be thankful. So during and after what felt like the worst case of food poisoning you could imagine, I began praying and thanking Him. I ended with "Thank you Lord that every pregnancy that I have been ill has resulted in a healthy pregnancy." Would you believe, I was never sick again that entire pregnancy!! It was a miracle. (Of course, I tried that in following pregnancies and He didn't bless me in the same way but He still fixed me and my heart.) I could truly thank Him during those sick times despite everything else in life that was getting so far behind due to the sickness. I'll never forget that miracle He did for me that Bible conference. He healed my body, encouraged my spirit and fixed my heart to choose thankfulness in all things. Thank you Lord.