Being Thankful

Yosemite Chapel

Yosemite National Park

California



As I began to reflect on this season of Thanksgiving, I realized what a truly blessed woman I am.  Earlier this week, I reached my 53rd birthday.  I have known the love of two Christian parents who sacrificed all my sisters and I.  They gave us love and raised us to love the Lord and to serve Him.  I have two sisters who have loved me and supported me.  I had grandparents who thought the sun rose in me and never let me forget it.  I have never known real hunger or gone without a warm, dry place to lay my head in the wet and cold and have, for most of my life, had an air conditioned place to cool my heals in the dog days of summer. I have been loved and cherished by a man who loved with me with his whole heart and who loved only God more than me.  I have always had more than enough to eat and clothing to keep me warm and decently covered.  I have had friends who loved me, prayed for me and supported me.

But above and beyond all of that, I have known the love, grace and mercy of a living God who gave His only Son for me.  I have been partaker of the forgiveness of a sinless Savior and felt the presence of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit of God, during the best and worst times of my life.  I have come to understand that walking with Jesus has to do with RELATIONSHIP, not religion.  For that, I am perhaps the most thankful!  Everything else in my life has taken on new meaning in that context.

Every day of my life I am thankful for all that God has so graciously given to me; but today I am more aware of all I have to be thankful for.  I am also thankful my forefathers saw fit to set aside this day each year to help us reflect on our blessings and to spend time consciously being thankful.  As the Lord tells us in His Word......

“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed,

do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus,

giving thanks to God the Father through him.” 

Colossians 3:17