overflowing with thanksgiving

Years ago, over a decade now, when I started this blog, I used it as a journal to remember things I wanted to have in a central location.  Sometimes I still use it in that way, but my prayer has been that as the Lord has blessed my life and taught me things, that He would allow me to pass that on to someone in need.  I have changed the name of this space several times, but for at least eight of these last eleven years, it has been Overflowing With Thanksgiving.  Here is where the name came from.

"So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, being rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude."  Colossians 2:6-7.

My translation that I first memorized those verses in said the word 'thanksgiving' instead of gratitude. 

In light of those verses, and because tomorrow is Thanksgiving day, I thought I would share some of what I am thankful for. 

I am so thankful that Jesus is my Lord and Savior.

Jesus is the Light of the world, in Him there is no darkness.  When we are apart from Him, as an unbeliever, we walk along in darkness.  When He draws us to Himself, then we start to walk in His marvelous light.

Life is hard, even with Jesus in my life.  I cannot even begin to imagine what it would be like if I lived without Him.  It would be impossible, I know that. 

Do you know Him?  I ask that all the time.  Please reach out if you don't, I would love to tell you more about Him in greater detail.

I am thankful for the wonderful people whom I share a roof with.

Our life is nowhere near ever being perfect.  Todd and I bicker and argue over the dumbest of things, my kids can act disrespectfully toward me occasionally, they fight and wrestle and argue and do all those things brothers do.  But we all love Jesus, we are all healthy, and we have so much to be grateful for, like the beautiful place we get to call home, the food that we have to eat, clothes on our back, and vehicles to drive.

I am so thankful for all of our extended families.  Todd and I have three wonderful sets of parents who love us, pray for us, and help us out all of the time.  Just the other night, Todd called my stepdad, and asked him if he would come eat dinner with us and then help him replace our attic stairs.  And Bill jumped at the chance.  We each have sisters and brothers and nephews and nieces, and we love each and every one of them, and thank God for them. 

  (I thought I'd let Kinsley and Kylie represent our extended families, because they are so precious.)

And friends, in our families, we are all so healthy, and again, we have so much to be thankful to God for.  He has so richly blessed all of us, and I have to praise Him for that.  Yes, we've had issues and scares (like cancer scares or even cancer itself in some cases), and we've had some big health problems (like when Tracy had a heart transplant), but y'all.  God has been so good to our families.  He has been so very gracious, and He has seen us through each and every situation.  He never once left our side!  I give Him all the praise and glory. 

This building represents a huge part of our lives, and that is that I am so very thankful for our church family, because they are family, and not just friends.  God placed us here within this church family almost eight years ago, and I am so glad.  I love living and attending here within my community.  I love our "little" town (it is no longer little), and I love living right here where God placed us.  I thank God for our pastor, and all the other pastors and staff that work here at CFBC.  Just last night, I was thanking God for this family here, because I spent time with some of them, decorating for Christmas.  I do not take lightly the fact that we have the freedom of attending a church like ours, and I thank Him for this.  I have never once regretted being a faithful church attender.  I would like to encourage you to do the same thing, if you don't already do this.  Find you a church that is close to you, and start attending.  Make it a priority. 

There are a million other little things I am also thankful for, but because of the whole time thing, I will stop with these.  These are my biggest blessings and gifts from the Lord.  I love taking the time and writing out what I am thankful for, and though I've done this in the past, I just started a new journal on Sunday night, to start keeping up with all the things again.  (And by things, I don't mean actual "things".) 

I pray for each of you who may be reading this, that you would feel the love of God through the words on this blog, and I pray that if you're not already a believer and follower of Jesus, that He would draw you to Himself.  I pray that you have a wonderful time of celebration tomorrow with family and friends.  Happy Thanksgiving to you all, from my family to yours.  God bless you, and love to all.