Thanks

"Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise;

give thanks to him and praise his name."

~Psalm 100:4

I'm thanking God for the return of my voice! I can almost speak and sing normally. I'm also thanking him for wonderful family and the great visits we've had with parents/grandparents over the past month. What a delight it is to have such loving, godly, prayerful parents/grandparents! I also appreciate how helpful they are when they come to visit. Thanks, Mom and Dad (all of you).

Today was my first day of working at the Bibles for Missions Thrift Center in town. If the Lord wills, I will continue to help out one Saturday a month. I appreciate having a have a thrift store in town, both for donating and for buying, and I appreciate that the proceeds go to buy Bibles for people in Haiti. While I worked this morning at BFM, Bob had the children straighten their rooms and then they all went grocery shopping. Now that's a loving husband! I'm so thankful for Bob and for our kids.

This afternoon Maggie had play time at a friends house while the rest of us went to Sioux City to do some shopping. We had a successful shopping day both at Sioux City and in Orange City -- new snow pants, shirts, and shoes for Carie, new socks and a sweater for Maggie, new undershirts and socks for David. I'm really thankful that we were able to get all that we set out to get today. We also had fun in the car listening to stories from the Wayside School collection.

For dinner/supper we went to Taco John's. That's a family first for us. We went for lunch one time when we were house hunting over five years ago, and the kids have been twice for ice cream, but tonight was the first time we had our evening meal there. The children ate every morsel of their meal without complaint! I was thankful that Bob had the idea of going out so that I didn't have to rush to make dinner after getting back late from Sioux City. It was a treat to have a fun family meal in a "new" place.

I'm thankful for God's goodness and His love that endures forever. I'm thankful that He forgives my sins, heals my diseases, rescues me from the pit, and crowns me with love and compassion (Psalm 103). I'm thankful that He satisfies my desires with good things. I may not always recognize the good things as good at the time, but I find that when I trust in God and His goodness and not my own perception of the circumstances, I experience His peace.

Yesterday I was focused on myself and my failures rather than on God and His goodness. I was grumpy, angry, sharp in my speech, overly sensitive, impatient, etc. Finally God got through to me. I realized that I turned every irritating action of my children into a personal accusation of my own failure as a mother. That only added to the list of my own personal failures in home management, time management, and self management. The more I thought of myself and my failures, the more unbearable I became to myself and my children. Thanks be to God for rescuing me from the downward spiral by showing me the truth and setting me free. How grateful I am for God's forgiveness through Jesus Christ when we confess our sins. I got a fresh start and had a better afternoon and evening.

This morning I greeted the girls with Maggie's memory verses for this week. I never took the time to review them with her yesterday and I certainly hadn't applied them during much of the day. How different my day could have been, and yet the failures of yesterday serve as a lesson to me and highlight the importance of God's words in Philippians 4:6-8

Don't worry about anything.

Instead, tell God about everything.

Ask and pray.

Give thanks to him.

Then God's peace will watch over your hearts and your minds

because you belong to Christ Jesus.

God's peace can never be completely understood.

Finally, my brothers and sisters,

always think about what is true.

Think about what is noble, right and pure.

Think about what is lovely and worthy of respect.

If anything is excellent or worthy of praise,

think about those kinds of things.

"Praise the LORD. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever."

~Psalm 106:1