Give Thanks

So, a friend sent me a message asking if I blog. I said I haven't in a long time, then I thought...why not? Life has fallen into a rhythm that is comfortable and there isn't any reason why I shouldn't blog, so here I am.

My life is full to overflowing with blessings, but, sadly, I haven't written them down anywhere. Then my mentor asks me to write out a list of 100 things I am thankful for. How often do we take time to think of the things we are thankful for? Being thankful is more than just a once a year thing. I Thessalonians 5:18 says "give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."

In all things? Yes in all things. In good times it is easy, though sometimes we forget that every good and perfect gift comes from God and we forget to give glory where glory is due. And in the bad or sorrowful times. Lately it seems like death is all around me. No one close to me has died, but death has been very close to people that I love, and so therefore it touches me too. But these times are not excluded. We need to be thankful at all times. I am not going to sit here and say that this is easy. We need time to mourn. But we cannot sit in our grief forever. If you are hurting, start by giving thanks that you have this day to live. Find something, anything, to be thankful for and watch as your eyes begin to open and see all that there is to be thankful for. Being thankful is a habit. It is a place that we choose to be until we are just naturally there.

I was going to list my 100 things in this blog, but things change, and in the last 48 hours I have heard of 5 people that have passed away. This is a time of hurting for many people that are close to me. I will not say that you need to just get over it. I know the pain of losing someone I love very deeply. But I will say that God knows how it feels to watch His son die. He knows your every hurt. Lean into Him and thank Him for being God. Thank Him for knowing how you feel. Thank Him that our life on this earth is not all there is. Thank Him that it is ok to be sad and to grieve. We can give thanks in ALL circumstances. Thanking God turns our thoughts from ourselves to Him and He is the only one who can comfort us in a time of loss.

My heart goes out to you if you are one who is in a time of suffering right now. I will leave you with this.

Romans 5

Peace and Joy

¹Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. ³Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

⁶You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Now that is something to be thankful for!