Happy Thanksgiving!

We have a book, Growing in Gratitude - Stories of Faith for Families, that we started using each year at thanksgiving.  It has a short story from History and lines to write what we're thankful for at the end.  This year, we did "Does God really know what's going on? - Being thankful for providence" 

It's tells the story of William Bradford... how he loss his father, grandfather and then mother all at very young ages and how he then got very sick physically.  It says that it was during his long illness that he finally saw a glimmer that God was in control.  It was these circumstances that allowed him to learn how to read and write, which not many people had the privilege of back then.  It was through those skills that he came to know the truth about the bible... and through that truth that he was called by God to sail on the Mayflower over here - and proclaim what is known as the first Thanksgiving...the day we are celebrating today.

At the end it asks "Can you believe that God is providentially working in your life and circumstances?  Give thanks today for what God has allowed in your life that might not make sense to you now.  He is not asleep.  He has a plan for your life.  Will you choose to believe that He is at work?"  What are you thankful for?

Our answers:

"I'm thankful for Rachel!" - Des
"Me too" - Mama
"Me too" - Daddy
"I'm fankful dat God gave me strong" - Isaiah
"Happy happy, joy joy!" - Samuel  :o)

Do I choose to believe that God is working through this?  Absolutely.  And it's not really a hard choice, it comes automatically because God has proven Himself over and over in my life.  Do I like His plan?  No.  But I don't know the whole thing yet.  Will it ever make sense?  You know, I'm not sure, but in my experiences with God, He has always shown me "why" exactly when I needed it.  That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt or that the "why" removes any of the pain.  It just shows me His love and compassion through the pain.

I have so many things to be thankful for...my amazing husband and his devotion to me and our children, to be blessed to stay home with our children, my family, our church, how God rescued me from my life of misery and gave me true joy, to know the blessing of Rachel, to have another experience in my life - although heart wrenching - to see God work in a mighty way and to be a part of that. 

Today we have decided to stay home cause my pain makes it very difficult to be out...plus, we don't have many days - ever - that we all just bum around and vedge for the day. (I'm not a 'vedger' by nature) We need this right now.  So, we did our morning Thanksgiving devotion together, pulled out the Christmas movies and snuggled up on the couch to watch Rudolph together.  Don't think life could get much better...

Oh, but wait, it does...when I told my mom we weren't coming up for Thanksgiving, she decided to bring dinner to us.  Yesterday while she was watching the boys, she cut up the potatoes and put them in a pan, made stuffing in a pan, brought cans of veggies, cranberry sauce, and gravy.  Then last night, her & Keith (her husband) brought us down a 17 lb turkey that Keith's work gave us.  She had it all ready to be cooked (and had even cleared a shelf in my fridge earlier that day)  So, when I woke up to pee at 4:30, I threw it in the oven.  It's ready now, we've turned on the potatoes and tossed in the stuffing...in 1/2 an hour we'll have our Thanksgiving feast all ready and all we had to do was turn on the oven and mix the potatoes!  Oh, and snuggle together. :o)  Thanks, Mom! 

Life is good... and we are so thankful - even when things are hard, we know we are so blessed.