Thanksgiving

     Every now and then everything seems to make me crabby and nothing seems to be going according to my plans.  After a few days I normally end feeling horrible for my selfishness. The end of last week was one of those times. I had been complaining for two days about any challenge I encountered. Then Sunday morning I arrived at Church to find out one of our choir members had received some not so good news on her health and my friend’s Dad had passed away. Then my guilt and sadness for each of them set in.

     When we went into Church later, she was smiling and singing the opening song in the choir. It was a real smile, the same big smile, a happy voice that she each week greeted us with as we walked through the church doors.

     The next day I called my friend who lost her Dad to see how she was doing. She answered the phone with her wonderful giggle and happy voice. I didn’t quit know what to say, except how nice it was to hear her laugh. She of course admitted she had shed tears for her loss and probably would do more crying, but knew her dad would want her to laugh too!

     Two amazing women, going through hard times but still living examples of love, kindness, and faith! Even in some of their toughest times they were able to keep a true smile and raise MY spirits. Isn’t that backwards?  What a lesson. It always seems at the worst times in your life God gives you the most strength. Maybe in those times we truly hand it over to him as we do not know what else to do except pray and have Faith.

….The Lord replied, “The times when you have seen only one set of footprints in the sand, is when I carried you.”

This is from one of my favorite poems “Footprints in the Sand”. If you have never read it you should.  You can find the full poem at:  http://www.footprints-inthe-and.com/index.php?page=Poem/Poem.php.

     I considered not adding any new goals this week since with Thanksgiving it would be pretty busy.  After Sunday, I knew I needed to make time to add at least one.  I needed a little reminder each day of ALL I had to be Thankful for.  God has given me many blessings. I am and will always be thankful for:  God, my husband, my two sons, three daughters, my parents and my husband’s parents, my siblings and husband’s siblings and all of their families, along with all the friends throughout my life. This week though I will try to think outside of the box to remember things I don’t always remember to give thanks for and give thanks to God for something different each day, this is something I learned from one of the ladies I spoke of above.  After all my 2 year old gives thanks almost every night for the time she got to stick her hand in the water fountain when we picked up the older kids from art camp. Sometimes it is the simplest things in life that we miss when giving thanks.