Remembering, Rejoicing, Restoring

Hi there! The end of the summer sure has been busy around here! It is hard to believe that Labor Day is coming up, and there is a hint of fall in the air as the days are growing shorter. I thought I would give you a peek into what has been going on in my life the past week....

Remembering: It started with a get-together with some friends that we had not seen for over 20 years! We recently reconnected on Facebook (there ARE some benefits to Facebook!) and then my friend messaged me that she and her husband were going to be in our area and would love to see us again. We set it up and were so excited. It was so strange...the voices and the personalities were the same, but we all looked different! There have been a lot of changes in our lives in 23 years to catch up on, but as we talked it was like time melted away. We just picked right up where we left off. It was a fun time of remembering the many great times we had shared.

The remembering continued a couple days later as my hubby and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary. Again, it does not seem possible that 40 years could have passed since we said our wedding vows as a very young couple one very hot August day in a church in eastern Pennsylvania. We have been through a lot together - good times, bad times, illnesses, surgeries, deaths of both his parents, many moves and some major life transitions, several house purchases and sales, serving in ministry together, having and raising 3 children, their graduations and weddings, and now 7 grandchildren! We had hoped to celebrate our 40th with a special trip, but due to my husband's knee replacement surgery this summer he was not quite ready for that yet. We will continue our celebration next summer, but for now we had a wonderful time having a special dinner and a sunset cruise aboard a schooner ship. God gave us the perfect evening and a spectacular sunset!

We also have had a week of rejoicing...for a couple reasons. God answered a prayer for us that we have been praying for almost three years! More about that in a later post. Another time of rejoicing came as we were able to enjoy the company of one of our sons and his wife and three children for a few days. It was our "last hurrah" before they begin school and we embark on a hectic fall schedule, and what wonderful times of joy we had! We played on playgrounds, read books, spent a day at an indoor water park, another day in Colonial Williamsburg, and our last day at the beach! My husband was only able to join us for one of these excursions, but we agreed it was a perfect week of fun with our grandkids. God was so good to give us such a wonderful week.

 

On to the restoring...last summer when we prepared the home where my husband grew up for sale (see my post The End of An Era, if you missed that), we rescued an old lawn swing that was in their yard which was in very poor condition. We almost decided it was past saving, but we brought it home and my husband set about completely restoring it. It needed to be completely taken apart, stripped and sanded, put back together piece by piece with all new hardware, and totally refinished. It took him almost a year of working on it off and on, but this week he finished it, and it is beautiful!

Why am I thinking and writing about remembering, rejoicing, and restoring? I think it is partly because we have been through a stormy year. With my mother-in-law's passing, my husband's knee surgery with complications, and a lot of difficult ministry situations this has been one of the hardest years in our 40 years of marriage. It is precious to me to realize that God lovingly brings us times of rejoicing. Those times are such an encouragement. Even in the midst of storms, we can rejoice in the Lord. It starts with remembering God's faithfulness to us through the years. In talking about the children of Israel, God said in Deut. 8:2, "And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou would keep His commandments or not." Psalm 143:5 ' "I remember the days of old, I meditate on all thy works, I muse on the works of thy hands." When we remember all God has done for us, even if we are going through a stormy time we can rejoice. There are so many good verses on rejoicing I had a hard time picking just a few! Psalm 9:2 - "I will be glad and rejoice in the Lord, I will sing praises to thy name, O most High!" Psalm 35:9 - "And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord, it shall rejoice in his salvation."  And then comes restoring. Just like restoring the swing brought it back to its original good condition, God wants to restore us into a right and close relationship with Him. That's why the Psalmist says in Psalm 51:2 - "Restore unto me the joy of my salvation."

Whether you are in a storm or it is smooth sailing for you right now, remember all God has done for you, rejoice in His goodness, and be restored into a joyful relationship with Him!

Joyfully,
Kathi

Another kind of anniversary

Sorry about the delay in my blog being posted this time! Last week was VERY busy around here, with Revival Services at church, a youth activity at our house, and a bridal shower! Whew!

Just six days from now, my husband and I will be celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary. Even though we got married when we were very young, that still seems incredible... how can it be 40 years? But when I consider that we have three adult children and seven grandchildren, as well as a few more pounds and wrinkles.....well, it's true!  I will probably be writing more about our special anniversary in a later post.

As I was thinking about our upcoming anniversary, I realized that we also have an anniversary of another kind this year. It is the 25th anniversary of my husband's yielding to the call of God to preach. My husband was called to preach later in life. He had been a businessman for 15 years, and quite a successful one at that. We both went through a time of resisting God's call on our lives. As you can well imagine, it meant HUGE changes in our life - selling a beautiful home with several acres of land, quitting a secure job with good pay and benefits, and moving our three children to another state in order for my husband to study for the ministry. But through all of that, God gave me peace and this one primary desire: to invest my life in others. We all invest our lives in something. But only investing our lives for the Lord counts for eternity. During this time, God especially used two verses in my life: One was my life verse in 1 Samuel 12:24 - "Only fear the Lord and serve Him with all your heart, for consider what great things He has done for you." The other is from Luke 12:48b ' ..."for unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required..." God has blessed me with so much, and now He was asking me to give back to Him.

Over these 25 years since we made that decision, we have learned a lot. A lot of what you do in the ministry is never taught in the classroom! I have had some fun remembering some of the things we have done through the years: dressing up in various costumes for VBS, grilling a lot of hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken (sometimes in the rain!) for church picnics, installing and painting drywall and putting a new roof on our church in Illinois, building sets and rehearsing skits, giving out brochures and New Testaments, playing a lot of crazy games (and not just with the teens!), moving the church office from our home into a new (to us) church building, setting up a church library from scratch, building bonfires and driving tractors for hayrides,  hosting Christmas Open House in our home for the whole church, building the base for a giant banana split, taking youth groups and kids to and from camp and retreats....and that's just the things I can think of. You could say we definitely believe in being a "hands-on pastor."

But above all, we have learned that ministry means one thing: investing your life in people. There have been many, many hours of doing that in many different ways. We have taught, discipled, mentored, and most of all loved the people that God has sent our way. There have been surgeries and serious illnesses that we have sat and prayed through, deaths and funerals where we comforted the best we could. There have been tough family situations requiring hours of counsel. We have laughed with them, cried with them, and spent countless hours praying with them. In short, we have knit our hearts together with theirs. That is what God called us to do.

And yet...whenever you invest your lives in people, you are taking a risk. The risk is that the very people who you have spent hours ministering to and investing your lives in can hurt you. We have discovered over the years that it seems like the ones we poured ourselves into the most also hurt us the most. People will misunderstand you. They hear things and don't come to you about it. People reject your counsel and your help. They decide that they want something other than what you have to offer them. And it hurts. And hardest of all, some of them make choices that take them away from God.

But even in this, I have learned. We may think we can protect our hearts from being hurt by avoiding building relationships with the people God sends us. The temptation to do that is great. However, when we do that, we are not really investing our lives in others. We are protecting our own interests and focusing on ourselves. That is NOT what God intends for us to do.

The other truth is this: when we are hurt by people, it makes me think of Jesus. There is no one who suffered more greatly or more unjustly than He did, and there is no one who gave of Himself more than He. It shames me to realize how I sometimes disappoint or turn away from the One who has given His very life for me. When you consider all that He does for us, it makes what we do for Him seem so small and trivial.

What - and who - are you investing your life in? When all is said and done, what will you be known for? A saying that I learned as a child has stayed with me all these years, and the older I get, the more it rings true for me:

Only one life, 'twill soon be past.
Only what's done for Christ will last.

Lovingly,
Kathi

This and That

I thought in this week's post that rather than writing a devotional I would do something a little different and just give you a glimpse into what I have been doing this week. But don't worry - I have included something inspirational at the end, so if the rest bores you, feel free just to skip to the end!

What I Have Organized

One thing I love to do is to organize things! Over the years I have found many great ways of organizing our home, but one thing that always drove me crazy was the freezer.  We have a chest freezer which is filled with packages of meat, vegetables, fruits, baked goods, and so forth, and I hated having to dig through everything trying to find that one item that I was needing. Often I would wonder if I had used it or I just couldn't find it. Or I would buy something, only to find out later I already had it. So, I went to Dollar Tree and bought  5 brightly colored plastic baskets - 3 large and 2 small. Total cost: $5. I unloaded the freezer and brought everything into my kitchen, and I sorted it and organized it by baskets. I used the 3 large baskets for chicken, pork, and beef. I put all my frozen vegetables in one of the smaller baskets and frozen baked goods (breads, muffins, cookies that I have made and frozen) into the other. And voila! It is working wonderfully! Now when I need that package of chicken breasts or frozen peas, I know EXACTLY where to go to find them. An added bonus is that I can easily see by looking at the various baskets when I am low or out of something before I go to the store!

Where I Went

Since my husband had his knee replacement surgery and subsequent complications in June, this summer has kind of been a blur of hospitalizations/PT/ recovery (which is still ongoing), and we hadn't gotten to do anything even remotely "summer-like". I was so excited that we had a free Saturday and that my husband was well enough to be up to a trip to a nearby beach! It was an abbreviated stay and it was the bay instead of the ocean, but hey, it was the beach! I wiggled my toes in the sand and swam in the waves and walked on the beach and LOVED it.

What We Celebrated

If you have been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that we have SIX beautiful granddaughters, all very close in age, and one handsome grandson! Two of our granddaughters had birthdays this week, within a day of each other. M. turned 3 and K. turned 4. (Another of our granddaughters turns 2 this coming week!) One of the disadvantages of not living near our children and grandchildren is that we seldom are able to spend things like birthdays together. We send presents in the mail, and we are thankful for cell phone and FaceTime and Skype so we could talk to the birthday girls and sing to them!

What I Baked

I know, you are not supposed to be turning on the oven and heating up the kitchen in the summer when it is 100 degrees outside. I just have a really hard time refraining from baking! One of the things I made this week is Zucchini-Pineapple bread. I have seen many recipes for zucchini bread, but this one just can't be beat. It is moist and absolutely delicious. I originally got the recipe from one of the ladies in our church in Illinois and in case you would like to try it, here it is:

Zucchini-Pineapple Bread

Mix together:
3 eggs
2 c. sugar
1 c. oil
1 tsp. vanilla

Sift together and add:
3 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon

Mix well by hand. Add 2 cups of peeled, shredded zucchini, 1 c. chopped nuts (optional) and 1 15-20 oz. can of crushed pineapple, well drained. Mix well. Grease 2 8 inch loaf pans or 6 mini loaf pans, fill, and bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes for regular loaves, 35-40 minutes for small ones.

Keep refrigerated, or freezes well. Try with whipped cream cheese spread!

Last but not least, What I Read

I absolutely LOVE it when I find a book on my shelf that I had forgotten I bought and never read! And it is even better when it is an unread book by my favorite author! And the icing on the cake is when the Lord uses that book to clearly direct me! I have been doing a lot of praying about what study I am going to teach in our upcoming year of Ladies Bible Study classes. I was pretty sure the Lord was directing me to teach a study on Discipline, based on another excellent book by Barbara Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Woman. Now that study will be enriched by this newly-discovered book by Elisabeth Elliott. As you know, Elisabeth Elliott went home to be with the Lord on June 15. She was one of my heroes of the faith and has impacted my life in more ways than I can count. I highly recommend reading anything by her that you can get your hands on.

In chapter 6 of this book, Elisabeth writes: "It is the willingness we must emphasize here. We pray "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." God's will is always willingly and gladly done in heaven. Willing obedience is a very different thing from coercion. God does not coerce us to follow Him....He tells us what to do, and we find our happiness in doing it. God will never disappoint us. He loves us and has only one purpose for us: holiness, which in His kingdom equals joy. If deep in our hearts we suspect that God does not love us and cannot manage our affairs as well as we can, we certainly will not submit to His discipline. Discipline is the glad surrender."

Hoping you have a good week knowing the faithfulness of your God,
Kathi

Intentional Mothering

If you read my recent post about the potluck dinner recipes, at the end I mentioned that I would be soon be blogging about something for mothers. It's one of those things that has been on my mind for a little while. I don't write too often about mothering, because having adult children and grandchildren, I am past that season of my life. But as I thought about that, I'm really not. God gives us our children for a lifetime. We are still mothers when our children are grown and on their own, it is just that our roles have changed. No longer are we spending our days changing diapers, rocking babies, disciplining toddlers, supervising playtime, wiping faces and noses and hands, making meals and feeding little ones, and picking up toys. We are not dealing with homework and music lessons and curfews and giving rides to all kinds of activities. But as moms of adult children, we move to answering questions about recipes and stain removal and fevers. We have the privilege of praying for them and their families and their ministries.We encourage and support them in what God is having them do. That is why I say that just because our children are grown, our job as mothers does not cease.

And that leads me to the question that this blog post is about....what is our goal in mothering? I used to think that the answer to that question was to eventually work ourselves out of a job when our children leave home. But if our role of motherhood is a lifetime gift and commitment, then that is not true. If we would say that our goal is to raise happy and healthy children and see them go out on their own to fulfill their dreams, I say that we have missed the point. God never tells us that the happiness of our children is the most important thing. The question we should be asking is: What is God's design for mothering? The answer to that question, I believe, is that our mothering is to glorify God. 1 Cor. 10:31 reminds us that "whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, do all to the glory of God." 1 Cor. 6:20 also tells us, "For ye are bought with a price, therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's."

Having the view that God's design for mothering is to glorify Him will help us to mother intentionally. When we are in the seemingly endless, sleep-deprived baby and toddler years, we can remind ourselves that we are not just going through the motions day after day, but we are to be doing everything in a way that brings glory to God, both now in the everyday nitty-gritty, and with the future in view. I recently found this quote from Elisabeth Elliott:

"This job has been given to me to do. Therefore, it is a gift. Therefore, it is a privilege. Therefore, it is an offering I may make to God. Therefore, it is to be done gladly, if it is done for Him. Here, and not somewhere else and doing something else, I may learn God's ways. In this job, not some other, God looks for faithfulness."

God doesn't want us to just persevere and get through the difficult seasons of motherhood. He wants us to have joy in knowing that we are doing what we are doing to bring glory to God. When the children grow older and we are grappling with decisions and situations about friends, activities, and education, always keeping in sight the thought that our mothering is to glorify God will help tremendously when it comes to making those choices and decisions. Does it glorify God to promote this outside interest or activity if it means our child is missing church? Does it glorify God when we permit friendships that are going to be a negative influence on our children?

As mothers of adult children, we still need to mother with the intention of glorifying God. Many mothers have trouble transitioning to a role which means they are not involved with their adult children's life and decisions on a daily basis. When we understand the Biblical teaching that our adult married children are to "leave and cleave", then letting them do just that glorifies God. Upholding them in prayer, and finding ways to encourage and support them as they raise their families brings glory to God.

Intentional mothering. It means realizing that God gave us our children as a gift to be given back to Him. It means living out our role as a mother in a way that will ultimately bring God the glory.

Thoughtfully,
Kathi

What are you bringing to the potluck?

That was a popular question last week, as this past Sunday we had a potluck dinner at church after our morning service. After much debate, I decided on Beef and BeanTaco Casserole, 7-Layer Salad, and Zucchini-Spice Cupcakes with Caramel Frosting. I dedicated part of my Saturday to cooking and promised I would post the recipes and pictures on this week's blog. There wasn't a morsel left of any of them!

Part of my reason for making the Beef and Bean Taco Casserole was selfish: it is gluten-free, so by making it I was ensuring that there would be at least one main dish there that I could eat! The other reason is - it's easy and SO yummy! I make it often. The recipe is originally from Food.com.

Beef and Bean Taco Casserole

2 cups broken tortilla chips
1 lb. ground beef
chopped green onions (amount to taste)
1 package taco seasoning mix
1 15 oz. can refried beans
1 16 oz. jar salsa
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped green pepper, optional
1/2 cup sliced black olives, optional
for topping - shredded lettuce, sour cream and additional tomatoes and tortilla chips

Heat oven to 350. Place broken chips in bottom of sprayed oblong baking dish. In a large skillet, brown the ground beef and onion, drain. Return to pan and stir in refried beans, taco seasoning, and salsa. Bring to a boil, stirring often. Remove and pour over the tortilla chips. Sprinkle with chopped tomatoes, cheese, and bell pepper and olives if using. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until bubbly. When serving, top with lettuce, additional tomatoes, sour cream and additional chips.

The 7-layer salad is an old recipe which is usually brought to a potluck by someone! This time that someone was just me. You can vary the ingredients for this according to what your family likes and what you have on hand. It is pretty as well as tasty.

7-Layer Salad

1 head iceberg lettuce, chopped

chopped green pepper

sliced carrots

chopped broccoli or cauliflower

10 oz. package frozen peas, thawed

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

several slices of crisp cooked bacon

dressing -  1 1/4 cups mayonnaise, 2 T sugar, 2 tsp. vinegar

Place lettuce in the bottom of a large clear glass bowl, and layer ingredients in order given, pressing down lightly between layers. Whisk together the dressing ingredients and spread over the top. Chill well.

I decided on the cupcakes because I had zucchini on hand, and cupcakes seemed like a good way to go. This recipe was recommended by my sister and is originally from Taste of Home. It was a good thing I kept a few out for my husband or he wouldn't have gotten any!

Zucchini-Spice Cupcakes with Caramel Frosting

3 eggs

1 1/3 cups sugar

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup orange juice

1 tsp almond extract (I used vanilla because I was out of almond!)

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground cloves

1 1/2 cups shredded peeled zucchini

In mixing bowl, beat eggs, sugar, oil, orange juice, and extract. Combine dry ingredients and add to the egg mixture. Mix well. Fold in zucchini and mix well. Fill paper-lined cupcake pans 2/3 full. Bake at 350 for 20-22 minutes or until test done. Cool on wire rack before frosting.

Caramel Frosting

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1 stick margarine or butter

1/4 c. milk

1 tsp. vanilla

2 cups confectioners sugar

Combine brown sugar, butter, and milk in saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook and stir for 2 minutes. Remove and stir in vanilla. Cool to lukewarm. Gradually beat in confectioners sugar until frosting is spreading consistency. If it is too runny, place in refrigerator for a few minutes. Frost cupcakes. Makes 1 1/2 to 2 dozen.

As a bonus recipe, I am going to share my recipe for Lemonade Pie. I have had this recipe for a long time and had forgotten about it. I found it when looking for another recipe, and it is such an easy and refreshing dessert for summer!

Lemonade Pie

1 graham cracker crust

1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk

1 small can (or half a large can) of frozen lemonade

1 tub Cool Whip

Let lemonade soften, but not thaw completely. Mix with condensed milk. Fold in cool whip. pour into crust, and freeze for several hours. That's it!

I hope you will be inspired to try one or more of these! Happy cooking! Speaking of being inspired, look for a post in the next couple days about mothering.

Kathi

Pulling the Tough Weeds

This week marks one year since I launched this blog! In beginning this new endeavor last July, I felt that I was following the leading of the Lord to share the things that He is teaching me and attempt to be a help and encouragement to those who might read it. In this first year much has happened and my posts have covered a wide variety of events and topics. I truly enjoy writing it and giving you a small glimpse into my heart and life, and I hope it has been a blessing to you in some small way.

For those who might be wondering, my patient is progressing, although it seems to be in baby steps to us - certainly much more slowly than he would like. He is now walking with a cane and continues with physical therapy sessions three times a week, twice-weekly blood draws and doctor checks, and of course the dreaded CPM machine. The machine does seem to be helping, although he has yet to put in 8 hours a day on it. Most days it is more like 3 hours, especially now that he is attempting to spend a few hours each day in his office at the church.

My caregiving responsibilities are slowly lessening, although my life is still far from my normal routine. Mostly that is because as long as my husband remains unable to drive, my days revolve around driving him to and from church, PT, and the blood draw and doctor appointments. I have found that with all that is happening lately, the Lord seems to be giving me an abundant supply of lessons to blog about. I sit down at the computer and thoughts are swirling around my brain like a snowstorm. Today I want to write about an unlikely topic: weeds.

One thing husband has always especially enjoyed is yard work and lawn care. He loves to mow, trim, fertilize, plant flowers, and just in general keep our yard and landscaping looking nice. I had to take over the lawn mowing for a few weeks prior to his surgery, and let's just say that I am not nearly as good at it as he is! Our son and now one of the young men from our church took over that responsibility, for which I am very grateful. My job is one of pulling weeds. I try to go around the flower beds and landscaping a couple times a week and just keep up with the weeds. The other night while my husband was outside walking in the driveway with his cane, we noticed that there were some HUGE weeds around our mailbox. I tried my best to pull them, but there was no way. They were a lot stronger than I was. This morning a kind man and his son from church came by to offer their assistance with our yard work, and they went to work pulling up those weeds. When they did, it was evident why I had such difficulty with them: the roots were deep and they were huge!

As I thought about those big, tough weeds and how their deep strong roots had given them such stability, I couldn't help but think about the weeds we all have in our lives.

• Weeds are usually ugly. They don't produce pretty flowers or anything of beauty.
• Weeds crowd out the good things. If you don't keep up with them on a regular basis, they will very quickly take over the flower beds.
• Weeds require work to get rid of them.
• Weeds are given stability by their roots. If you want to permanently remove the weeds, you have to remove the roots. Otherwise, they will come back. Sooner rather than later. 

The Bible doesn't have a lot to say about weeds, other than the familiar parable about the sower and the seed. One of the types of ground that is described is the thorny - full of weeds which choked out the good seed as it had been sown and was attempting to grow. If we don't keep up with pulling out the weeds of sin and influence of the world in our lives, the seed of the Word of God and the good He wants to accomplish from it will be choked out by the abundance of weeds that we haven't taken care of.

The Bible does, however, talk a lot about roots. There are both good roots (Jeremiah 17:7-8), which when rooted in Christ without the involvement of sin give us spiritual nourishment and health, and bad roots which come from sin and need to be removed. They are what will eventually produce weeds in our lives. One of those bad roots is the root of bitterness in Hebrews 12:15: "Looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled." Bitterness is a weed that begins as a root and unless it is dealt with will grow into something which not only troubles us, but will spread to others. And did you notice that the verse begins by the admonishment to be "looking diligently'? You have to be on guard for those seeds of sin and bitterness which may have already taken root in your life.

What roots and weeds do you have in your life today? Do you need to spend some time with God and do some weed-pulling? If you don't, they will eventually take over your life!

Till next time,
Kathi

Practicing Gratitude

I wish I could say that things at our house have improved a whole lot since last week. I really do. But they haven't. The days of inactivity when my husband was admitted to the hospital for a second time due to having blood clots have resulted in a considerable delay in his recovery. At his post-surgery appointment earlier this week, the doctor was pleased with the healing of his incision, but not with his progress. He prescribed a machine that flexes the knee constantly (Constant Passive Motion) for my husband to use at home up to 8 hours a day, as well as intensive out-patient physical therapy sessions. At this point, more than two weeks after surgery, he is still using a walker because of his inability to raise his leg on his own, which is very discouraging. Driving him to PT and doctor and blood draw appointments is up to me, along with a good share of his daily care. We long for things to get back to "normal" and for him to be able to return to his shepherding of the flock God has given us.

I will be honest. This has been a very difficult time for me. I get tired and with the lack of progress I become discouraged. This trial of surgical complications is added to the trials of my mother-in-law passing away and problems in ministry and the burden of having a house that still hasn't sold. I wake up early in the morning and do a lot of praying. During this time, I am rehearsing something I learned years ago that helps in times of discouragement: choosing gratitude.

Gratitude is one of the main ways that God brings joy to our hearts. When we exercise faith to see the blessings as we pray about our problems, God promises to meet us with peace. (Phil. 4:6-7). It is a matter of perspective. I can choose to focus on the problems and the negatives, or I can focus on the blessings God has given me.

A book that I found to be truly life-changing is "Choosing Gratitude" by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. I have read through it at least twice as well as developed a study guide to use with it. The following is a quote from "Choosing Gratitude."

"In those moments when I have found myself gasping for air, feeling that I was going under, I've discovered that gratitude truly is my life preserver. Even in the most turbulent waters of life, choosing gratitude rescues me from myself and my runaway emotions. It buoys me on the grace of God and keeps me from drowning in what otherwise would be my bent toward doubt, negativity, discouragement, and anxiety."

Many years ago I was challenged to make a list every day of five things I was thankful for that day. Some days it was easy...some days it was a challenge to come up with even three things. It was eye-opening, to say the least. I could not believe the change in my perspective as I began actively looking for things each day that I could be grateful for. No matter how bad the day, if I made the effort and the choice to be grateful, I was rewarded with the peace and contentment that came from recognizing God's faithfulness through His gifts of grace to me.

I have since gotten away from that habit of listing things I can be grateful for, but in recent days I have once again been focusing on choosing to be grateful. I am thankful for wonderful supportive children, including a son who was willing to drop everything and come to stay with me and be involved in his dad's care. I am thankful for good doctors and therapists and medical care. I am thankful for health insurance. I an thankful for a comfortable, air-conditioned home for him to recover in. I am thankful that I am able to be at home and to care for my husband. I am thankful for a loving church family. I am thankful for the gift and privilege of prayer. And even more than those blessings, I am thankful for God Himself - His presence, His love, His Word, and for the assurance that nothing ever happens to me without first passing through the hands of my Heavenly Father.

Gratefully,
Kathi