Giving Thanks

It's Thanksgiving week and we are celebrating one year in Rockwall. It is a fitting time to be thoughtful about where we are and where we've come from. Thanksgiving was officially declared a national holiday in order for Americans to look back on our heritage - to remember those early British settlers who chose a hard and rigorous new country in order to have religious freedom. Because of their sacrifices we have the right to call ourselves Americans. Our country is not perfect but it is the best country in the world and many, many thousands of people would give anything to live here. I am so grateful to be an American.

I love our new city. We are close to our children and that is a huge blessing. They drop in on us frequently and meals together, shopping trips, movies, game nights - are no longer rare occurences. What a joy adult children are. We have a new church family and they have been so loving and accepting of us. We do lots of things together and you wouldn't know that we were the new people. We live on a golf course and by a marina. So we have lots of fun things to do.

I have to thank God for Billy's new job. He works for a wonderful company that values their employees in every way. He gets to travel a lot and I get to go. We've met so many lovely people and just this last week as we flew home from Tuscan and I was so sick, one of his fellow employees went to the sky mall store and bought me a neck pillow for the flight home. That's the calibre of people he works for.

We have had much loss and sorrow in the past year also. My mom and dad went home. My brother has had three back surgeries and many complications. My stepdad has a brain tumor. We still mourn the loss of our Justin. And yet, God has been faithful to sustain us, to comfort us, to continue to reveal Himself to us. We are filled with the hope of the day we are reunited. We are living in the kingdom today. We are anticipating with great hope all that God has prepared for us.

This Thanksgiving our children will be with their in-laws and we will be celebrating with our church family/friends who are also 'alone' for the holidays. We have discovered a 'new' life in our 'new' town and it is different. Different for me because I am accustomed to fretting and worrying. My new life - my choosing to live in the kingdom life - is finding joy in the now. Accepting the good in the life I have and refusing to dwell on the difficult. It's not that life isn't hard, it's just that this is not all there is and THAT is what I am the most thankful for.

So I am thankful. Thankful. Thankful. And before I wrap up this post, let me say - I am thankful for you - my friends. You are the greatest. I love you and I pray God blesses you mightily.