A new day is here!

I am thankful today is a new day. Yesterday I made a mistake and did something I shouldn't have done. I told myself not to do it, but I did it anyways. I should have relied on God to give me the strength to not fail again. Instead I relied on me. Now I have a new day and a new chance to trust in God and rely upon Him to help me avoid doing things that harm me and those around me. I always seem to fail me, God always seems to give me strength. It is so obvious that I should trust Him, yet there I went again. Thinking I could do something for myself. Trust in God. My Hope and my Forgiver. Thank You Lord for giving me another chance.

Second chances

I am thankful for second chances. Mistakes happen in my life on a regular basis. Most of my mistakes are relatively minor. The most common mistake is when I sin deliberately, knowing better, because I want to. I don't do what most people would consider major sins, like murder or rape or robbing banks. Yet each mistake I make and each sin I commit takes me further away from God. Each sin affects my relationship with Jesus and my relationships with those who are closest to me in negative ways. I am thankful that God gives me a second chance each time I fail. When I repent He forgives me and washes away my guilt. The results of my errors are still there, but now I have a chance to make new decisions. I can choose to do the right things and follow God's law for me. I can choose to rebuild the broken relationships. Jesus has already chosen to rebuild His relationship with me at any time I will open my heart to Him, so I always have a second chance with Him.

Is spelling optional?

I am thankful for the ability to communicate through writing. I am not a particularly good writer, but I am able to read and usually understand what others say and I can usually write things that others can understand. It is handy to be able to write a letter or an email and communicate a need or a message to others and not have to be face to face with them to communicate. Writing things gives me time to organize my thoughts and think through what I want to say and even occasionally to revise what I write to better communicate the ideas I have. I am thankful that God has communicated with me through His written word. At any time I can open His word and the Holy Spirit can embed His message in my heart through the reading of that which God had written long ago.

Rainy days are best when you sleep in

I am thankful for occasionally being able to sleep late. Most days I get up at 4 AM or 5 AM, and rarely as late as 6 AM. Then on Sunday mornings I might wake up at 5:30 to check the temperature and rain gauge, then slip back into bed and sleep till 8 AM or even 8:30 AM. Ah, it is deliciously decadent! I know in theory that I would be better off to go to bed and rise every day at the same times. I am not sure why I enjoy the sleeping in till 8, when its not cloudy the sun shinning outside will usually wake me up. I can just check the time, roll over and go back to sleep. Breakfast can wait a little longer.

Unappreciated Jeremiah

I am thankful for stories in the Bible that help put things in my life in perspective. I am currently feeling unappreciated in a certain area of my life. I feel that I have something to offer others that would be a blessing to them in this area, but not only do those people not seem to want my help, a few individuals apparently are doing everything they can to make sure I don't help anyone in this area even in a small way. Like I said, I am not feeling appreciated. I am studying the book of Jeremiah. Like so many of God's prophets, he was not appreciated. God gave him a message and he faithfully repeated it. If the people of his day had listened and taken it to heart, they would have lived and the nation of Judah would not only have not been destroyed in gruesome horribleness, Judah and its people would have had a prosperous peace with God's blessings flowing through them to the nations around. The rulers and people of Judah didn't listen. They also didn't want to have God's message spoken around them, they preferred to hear the lies of false prophets who told them what they wanted to hear. So they plotted to have Jeremiah killed and did everything they could to make his life miserable. Even the folks in his home town plotted to do him in. I can imagine there were days that Jeremiah felt very unappreciated. Probably even questioned whether what he was doing was from God. God had given him very clear instructions to keep giving God's word to Judah, so Jeremiah kept on being faithful and doing what God wanted. Kind of puts my problem in a different light. No one is trying to kill me. No one is shouting at me to shut up. No one is accusing me of treason just because I am doing what God tells me to do. Since I don't have a clear word from God to do what I think would be helpful in this area, I am just going to back off. If I get a clear message from God, I hope I will have the courage to do what God wants me to do, otherwise I'll just leave it in His hands.

A tree falls and I'm not around

I am thankful for the ability to hear. Hearing sound is a practical way to acquire knowledge and perspective, brings useful information into one's brain and can also bring pleasure. Sounds are always around me, loud sounds, piercing sounds, soft sounds, voices of those I love, voices of those who nag, voices of cows bellowing, shrill sounds, wailing sounds, soothing sounds, whispers in the trees, startling clunks or whams, sharp retorts of gunfire, roars of blasting explosions, peals of thunders, voices of irritation, chirping sounds of insects, mewing sounds of a kitten, raucous sounds of laughter, the sound of the trilling brook through the valley, the quiet drone of the professor in the classroom, the cover your ears whine of a jet engine, the snap crackle snap crash of the sawn tree crashing, a voice that says I love you, a baby crying in the middle of church, a caw of a crow, a warning wail of the ambulance, the soft murmur of the voice of God on the top of the mountain. Sounds are everywhere affecting my life with information conscious and unconscious. I am thankful for the ability to hear.

Sight

I am thankful for the ability to see. There are so many things in nature that are so beautiful to see that so much pleasure to life. Sight is a blessing that most people have and I think I usually take it for granted, as too many of us do. I am thankful for the blessing of sight.

Does a leaf make noise when it falls in the forest?

I am thankful for autumn. Coolness without cold, for the most part. Occasional rain without flooding, usually. Clear skies with sparkling freshness, often. Here in Tennessee the weather changes frequently and is often unpredictable. Every year there is usually a lot of seasonal variety. This year October has had more cloudy wet days than is usual for this part of the US. October is the driest month on average and there are usually lots of sunny days. Last year I recorded a trace or more rain on six of October's thirty-one days. This year is unusual in that I have recorded a trace or more thirteen of the twenty-two days so far. Still, fall is one of my favorite times of the year. I don't like temperatures much over 70º F and I don't like temperatures much under 40º F, and usually October and early November has more days in that range than any other times of the year except for mid March through April. The earth is settling down for its winter rest in the northern hemisphere and I like the way the air feels on mornings when the temperatures are in the 40's and then I like the way the days warm up to the 60's. The leaves change into a beautiful palate of reds, yellows, oranges, and mauves (OK, maybe not mauve). There are usually enough junipers on the hillsides to infuse green into the pictures of autumn color. I am thankful that autumn is beautiful and peaceful.

A blog a day can be inspiring!

I am thankful for blogs. A college student from our church, Matt, has gone to Peru to be a student missionary for a year. He created a blog to record some of his experiences and the church passed along the address so members could keep up with his story. His writing style is interesting and informative and it has been a pleasure to read his occasional entries and see what his life as as a student missionary is like. He also has some followers that are also student missionaries who have blogs telling of their experiences in other places like Honduras. Those followers in turn have other student missionary followers who are blogging their stories. I have to make myself stop spreading the net out or I wouldn't have time to do much else but read student missionary blogs. The stories these young people tell are impressive. They usually don't have a lot of great things to talk about, they spend their days doing small services for those God has called them to help. They are honest in their writings, so you get a sense of the frustrations as well as the joys they have as they deal with other cultures from Egypt to Peru to Honduras to the Marshall Islands. Some of them are together at the same places, so you even get different perspectives sometimes of the same incidents that happen at the schools or clinics they are teaching at or doing their medical work at. God is using these youth to show His love to individuals in ways that will be eternal blessings to both the student missionaries as well as the people they impact each day. I have known since I was in college that student missionaries were being sent to far away places, but I had never given much thought to their stories unless one of them spoke about their experiences when they got back home for a mission report or something. It is so fascinating to read their stories as they write what happens from day to day. I am blessed when I read their blog entries and I am inspired by what these youth are doing for God. I anonymously thank each one for taking the time to write about their student missionary life so others can see the things Gos is doing all over the world using special people who are willing to let God stretch them from their comfort zones to serve others. I praise God that He uses each of us if we are willing to be used where we are.

What a grouch!

I am thankful that my being grouchy usually lasts only a short time. I realize that to some it probably seems I am often grouchy, but I think I am usually really quite easy going and take things pretty well. Sometimes I can get pretty disgruntled at life and mad at everything. I am thankful these periods usually don't last very long. A little reality thinking usually will help me remember that God is good to me and I have many things to be thankful for. I'm sure these periods last way too long for those around me who have to put up with my needless seething, but at least a few hours is usually the limit. (We won't get into how many a few is!) Maybe as I get older I will almost always be happy when happiness is appropriate. I have reason to be happy most of the time, so maybe it will come my way. For now, I can be happy that sometimes I'm happy I guess.

Mom

I am thankful for good parents that loved me when I was growing up. My mom is now 84. She is the one when we were going up that verbally expressed her love for me. Mom claims she doesn't like parties and such, but growing up she was always doing things to celebrate birthdays and holidays. Nothing big like a party with 50 acquaintances and a pony, but some kind of celebration within the family to make a big deal of the birthday or event. She tried to let you know she was interested in you. And if you showed interest in something she tried to get something to help you develop the interest. She made sure we went to church each week and participated.She worked outside the home, but she was big in helping to teach us about gardening and putting food up and such. She taught us to respect others and tried to keep her four sons from beating on each other too much. She was a forgiving person and taught us to be forgiving. When she loaned me a pocketknife that had belonged to her first husband who had died years before and I lost the knife, she expressed disappointment but did not berate me endlessly. Later I realized how that must have hurt to lose one of the few things she had from her earlier husband, but she forgave me. I was interested in different things than others in my family, but she encouraged most of those interests and even tolerated my love of sports to some extent. My mom loved us each and encouraged us to show our love for each other, which most of the time was not an easy task. Thanks mom, I love you and I am thankful I had a good mom who loves me.

Dad

I am thankful for good parents that loved me when I was growing up. My dad passed away in 1995 at 90 years of age. He loved me and as he got older he showed that love more. He had a temper and expected things to be done a certain way and he would let you know when you weren't meeting his standards. He also knew how to do lots of stuff, useful stuff. He taught me to work. He wasn't satisfied with just doing a job, he wanted it done right. He was not an Adventist, but he went to church with us for many years. He allowed my brothers and me to go to church school for a few years. He was consistent in his relationship with his sons. He had integrity. He was honest. He modeled Christianity even though I never knew him to speak of being a christian. He was smart in both book learning and in horse sense. His ability to do practical things that I didn't know how to do always intimidated me. Now as I look back, I think I was more like him than I ever knew. A lot of his practical knowledge came from experience, from having to do many different things over the years. I am thankful that I grew up with a father that loved me and did everything he could to make sure I grew up to be a good man.

A shrub tries to grow into a tree!

Growing can be painful. Not necessarily physical growth, but character growth. I often seem to have to learn lessons the hard way, through the pain of mistakes. Many of these lessons could be learned from seeing the experience of others and from paying attention to the results of others actions on their lives and the lives of those around them. But no, I have to make the mistake and fail and have the poor results for myself, and often I seem to have to do it again and again and again and again and... Well you get the point. I am thankful that sometimes, not often enough I'll admit, I do learn the lesson. I am thankful that sometimes I don't keep repeating that thing I did that causes so much trouble for me and/or those around me. I've grown a little bit as a person and I'm better off for it and sometimes those around me are better off too. God in His wisdom and patience has helped me grow by giving the thing in my life that I needed, whether I knew I needed it or not.

Appreciation

I have helped our local Pathfinder club with a program called Pathfinder Bible Achievement (PBA) for the last few years. PBA is a Bible Bowl type program with four levels where teams advance with a First place when they get within 90% of the top score at any event. I started helping because a few years ago Travis was on the team and no one seemed to be doing anything to help the team get ready for the first event. I found I liked making practice questions, so I have helped the team study the last three years. Last year Travis was too old to participate, Pathfinders can only participate when they are in grades 5-10, but I still helped the team study. I enjoy interacting with the Pathfinders and I like the feeling that I am helping them in some small way get a blessing from the PBA program. At the end of the Pathfinder year, I received a plaque in recognition for my help with the PBA team. I appreciated the plaque when I got it, but I appreciated it even more after Nancy told me that the plaque was the idea of one of the Pathfinders who had wanted to do something for a long time to thank me for my efforts to help them study. It meant a lot to know that it came from a Pathfinder and not just the adults. I am thankful that I received this plaque. It means a lot to me and encourages me to continue to try to help the Pathfinders on the PBA team study and learn meaningful lessons from the portion of scripture they are studying. Some of the adults associated with the PBA program do not appreciate my efforts (a long story with a lot of misunderstandings involved), so it is especially encouraging to know that a Pathfinder not only appreciated my efforts, but wanted to thank me enough that they took the time and effort to badger the Pathfinder leader into doing something to publicly recognize my efforts. I am thankful that I was appreciated.

Snow is White

Winter is on the way. While I don't like many aspects of winter in Tennessee, I am thankful when we have snow. A six or seven inch snow is a good snow for around here. I don't remember ever seeing a snow of more than eight inches, and that was several years ago when we lived in Dickson, Tennessee. A seven inch snow is the most I can remember us having here in Westmoreland. Three or four inches is pretty exciting for me. When it snows that much, I enjoy walking around in it and seeing how clean and fresh the normally drab earth looks. Feeling the fluffy puffs of water falling on my face as I saunter through a few inches of new snow is both exciting and peaceful for me. My family will tell on me if asked. I also have been known to rush outside every thirty minutes or so to measure the snow depth while the snow is falling, hoping to see a truly good snow pile up. Maybe someday ten inches will fall or maybe even a foot of snow will cover the ground around me. A foot of snow, now that would be a snow! Anyone from places where it really snows, like Soda Springs California, can just laugh at me. A foot of snow will be my dream until I see it, though I'd just as soon pass on driving in that much snow.

Procrastination

I know it seems like it has been a long time since I last posted that I am thankful about something. I've had good intentions, I have meant to make an entry many times about various things that I was thankful for, but I kept telling myself I would do it when I "got home from work" or "in the morning" and you see the results of that thinking. Well, today I have solved that problem. I am thankful that I am no longer procrastinating on updating my thankfulness blog, I have made an entry.