Where has the day gone!

Wow! Today has just flown by... in order to not forget to update my blog I thought I would post some things that I am thankful for this day...

1) I am thankful for my beloved wife. I still remember the day we met at the home coming football game for her college. I had been set up on a blind date with one of her roomates (long story there), and the three of us spent the entire game talking about the Soveriegnty of God! I don't think I saw three plays the whole game. She captured my heart the very first day we met. I still am not sure why she puts up with me... and I really mean that.


2) I am thankful for three kids. It just amazes me that God used me and my beloved to create three other human beings. Each one of them is amazing to me. And does God ever use them in my life! Joy, frustration, humility, love... and they are like mirrors into my soul and mind. God uses them to reveal sin in my life, to help me to better conform into the image of His Son, and there by - I hope - make me a better father and husband.


3) I am thankful for my career. When I met my beloved I was a carpenter's apprentice. Although I owned a little Ford Escort station wagon (a 'gift' from a church member I had never met), which was totaled a week later. She was always having to come down and meet me (we lived over 50 miles from each other), or I was having to catch a ride. When I moved to another state (actually closer to her) in order to pursue a college education and get married, I had no real job. Long story short, I have the job I have today, not because I knew what I wanted and went after it, but because God continually opened doors in my path.


4) I am thankful for my past. Specifically for my experiences. I grew up with divorced parents. I lived with my mother who struggled with depression and had attempted suicide several times. I never lived in any one place for more than two years. At one point, I lived in four different homes, and went to three different schools - all in one school year. I look back and I am just amazed at what God did and how He shaped me through those things. It is all by grace that I can say that my Lord is Jesus Christ, that He died for my sins, and that I can call Him friend/Lord/Savior. It is nothing done by my hand, or anyone elses.


5) I am thankful - and this really should be #1 on the list - for my salvaton. That God humbled Himself, came into the world to reveal the Father, and then paid the price of my sin so that I could know the Father.


6) I am thankful for the National Guard. God has used it to really shape me into a man who is responsible for his actions, and a man who takes service seriously. I have had the opportunity to serve my fellow man when they are most in need... and it is something I have really, really enjoyed. I have had the chance to travel (Honduras, Panama, Louisiana, Arkansas, California, Virginia, Maryland, New York, Florida, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Pennsilvania, West Virginia, Georgia). I have had the chance to meet Governors; fly in helicopters; repel off towers, helicoptors, mountains. I have had the chance to experience so many things that otherwise I would not have had the opportunity.


7) I am thankful for music. I really love music. Especially 'praise and worship' music. but I have found that i enjoy a lot of different kinds. Rock and Roll, Blues, Soul or Jazz, Irish and Scottish folk music. I especially enjoy the flute and piccilo.


8) I enjoy the internet. I have a been able to meet a lot of people, a chance to learn. A chance to 'see' a lot more than I otherwise might not have.


Well, I could probably go on, and on, but I need to wrap up for today... may God grant each of you a peaceful, and blessed Thanksgiving!



Verse for today:
Psalm 9:1-2, ESV
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.