keeping up with my 'thankful' posts

I'm finding it very helpful these days, to stop and give thanks for the things that so easily slip by as "expected" things in life. Evidences of God's grace are all around me and stopping to say "thanks Lord" really does my soul well. I feel refreshed focusing on the good gifts than dwelling on the trials and issues we face in life. Not that I shove those away and ignore them, I just think they naturally get a lot of our focused attention and prayer.

So today I'm going to continue a post about what I'm finding myself thankful for. These posts will be random - I've decided I can't commit to doing a post for a specific day of the week. Some of you might be surprised to learn, I'm not a great planner. With some things I am, but not in all things and definitely NOT with the blog :) I guess I don't think its that's important, truth be told. So these posts will pop up every now and again {hopefully more often than not} and I don't plan on making them all long and deep and insightful {as if any of my stuff is} just what I'm genuinely giving God thanks for in the moment.

sunshine. beautiful, warm, delightful sunshine. 

gorgeous colors of Spring and summer, all around our home. 

an amazing deal on a fabulous kitchen table my husband scored for us! 

this table is simple, stream lined and butcher block material that Jason found for 

$120 dollars! We've been trying to find something durable, but not near $1K and this table was

a huge answer to prayer! 

a sermon on the topic of prayer and holy persistence, on the Sunday I needed to hear it. 

physically feeling much better {aside from the allergy issues} and feeling a lot of peace 

about my previous post; knowing God isn't going anywhere and loves me more than anyone else.

I could put Jason in every post {and probably will} but I just feel like I need to give thanks 

for him publicly, since I am so overwhelmed by his love for Christ and toward me. 

I don't want to be all cheesy and go on and on about how great he is 

{I do think he's pretty fabulous!} 

because I know he'd want me to point the praise upward and not at him. 

I'm just thankful for a husband who makes Christ his end goal and places his hope and joy in 

the Lord. It flows down to each member of our family and really sets the Spiritual tone in our home. 

I know he's going to read this and say "Really? I don't feel this... I have so far to go." 

and I'm just gonna smile and add, he's quite humble too :) 

I'm just thankful that though he doesn't lead perfectly {and he knows it}

he's also not full of a million excuses for his sin and isn't continually putting his 

responsibilities up on a shelf, acting like until God makes him the perfect leader, he can't obey. 

I'm thankful Ethan has been blessed with a good example and that our girls will know 

what a good & faithful husband looks like. 

lastly, I have a few friends who God uses in great ways in my life. 

Great ways. I've been working on ways to show these women how much they mean to me. 

Some of them I've known many, many years-  some I just met a couple years ago. 

You ladies know who you are. 

Mostly because I've thanked you personally over the past few weeks :)

I thank God for each one of you daily and have asked him to please bless you richly, in 

the kind ways you've been a blessing to me. 

I'm thankful also for honest friends. I love people who are lovingly honest. 

A friend of mine pointed out {several months ago} that we seem to always be running late for things. 

And though its not always a big issue, sometimes it can mess things up or cause 

other people to have to wait on us, in our tardiness.

She simply said "maybe a good idea would be, if you know you typically run 30 minutes 

late, then plan to be 30 minutes past the time you think you'll be there - or prep 30 minutes ahead 

of schedule and then you'll be on time! 

I've been purposing to work on that over the past few months and guess what! 

We've been EARLY to a couple things! Even Doctors appointments which I was always 

habitually 10 minutes late for. I knew it must have been bad when the receptionist noticed last week and thanked us for being 5 minutes early :) 

I loved that she said this to my face, that she said it kindly in conversation and she offered 

some things that might be helpful to me. She didn't put down or make me feel 

all discouraged about being a busy mom with a lot on her plate. 

She knew I'd want to know and she knows I like to be timely and orderly, so she knew

her advice would be appreciated and it totally was! 

Thank you, friend of mine :) 

Have a blessed week everyone! 

I hope you're able to see evidences of 
God's grace 

throughout the week ahead.