Always Only For My King

It's crazy the things God uses to make me more like Him and less of me.  When normal activities are withheld from ones life, well at first it's nice to just rest and allow the body to heal.  Then after a while it's easy to become stir crazy!  Just to be able to vacuum and mop the floors, at this point almost feels like a luxury. Oh! Did I just say that?   Notice I did say ALMOST! And sorry, but I'm just able to do our own, so please don't volunteer me to come do yours!

 But that's the truth!  Then to be able to do work in the yard with caution of course- it felt like I am a contributing member of this family again, more than just doing laundry and dishes! And dare I say it, to finally be able to mow the lawn, felt like I was back in the saddle again! (Yesterday, November 25th was my first time to mow in 4 months!)

I'm just thinking about how wonderful it feels to be able to do these things again! If you'd told me a year ago I'd be this grateful for these things, I would have laughed and thought you were joking!  I am so thankful  to be able to mow. Being able to mow, means my son can just be a student and focus on his a;ready full plate of, School, Teen Quizzing, Science Center education and Taekwondo.  It all keeps him pretty busy.  To be able to vacuum and mop the floors helps me to keep our place somewhat inhabitable.  Which makes our house a safe haven to call home, where there is order and structure.  YES! I was finally able to do some organizing last week!  It's amazing how many piles of things were just sitting around awaiting being put back in their proper places!  And how many things needed to be thrown out!

I have an idea that God may have permitted the unusual events of our summer with my being in and out of the hospital, to teach me a thing or two!  I know I even wrote a post about what is my lesson in all of this in which I shared some of the events that God was using to shape my life.  But now looking
back from this perspective I see life!  God has granted you and I life and breath!   Never have I felt so thankful to be alive!  Never have I felt the desire to make the most of my time.  Investing my time,
energies and talents  for a higher purpose than to please myself.  Moses prayer in Psalm 90:12 has a new meaning  to me, "Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. "(‭Psalm‬ ‭90‬:‭12‬ NIV). And yet in giving my all to God, He in turn has blessed me immensely, Psalm 103:5 says, "...who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s." This Thanksgiving I am  so thankful that God has restored my body from the trauma that I experienced this past summer.  I am thankful for life and to be alive.  To be able to use the gifts, talents and abilities, and the experiences God has brought me through for His purposes.  It's not all about what's in it for me.  Not that it ever was, but now more than ever I see this life as something precious to be valued. To live without regrets! To make the most of the time I am given,
as James puts it,"Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. (‭James‬ ‭4‬:14‬ NIV)

Another way I'm looking at life differently these days is to let the special people in my life know how
much they mean to me!  And a big way I see that is by celebrating their lives by remembering their
Birthdays, and to let them know their life has impacted mine. To let them know, I'm thankful to God that He brought our paths together.

By the way God has really blessed me with some amazing friends who are such encouragers and down to Earth people that I can just be myself with.  And for family I am one blessed gal, to be brought up in a home that showed love and taught me how to live, laugh and love!  It's not the stuff I can accumulate that I'm as thankful for as it is the people God's blessed me with.  Friends and family mean much more to me these days!

This was longer than I intended, but Simply and Honestly this day of Thanksgiving I'm so thankful
for the life God has given me and for my family and the many special friends that are in my life.  God's blessings just seem to be overflowing and I cannot begin to Thank God enough for each of you who've made a difference in my life! In the only way I can even begin to Thank God for His goodness and blessings in my life I give Him everything, always, only for my King.
This song is my Thanksgiving prayer:

Take My Life

Take my life and let it be

consecrated, Lord, to Thee.

Take my moments and my days,

let them flow in ceaseless praise.

Take my hands and let them move

at the impulse of Thy love.

Take my feet and let them be

swift and beautiful for Thee.

Take my voice and let me sing

always, only for my King.

Take my lips and let them be

filled with messages from Thee.

Take my silver and my gold

not a mite would I withhold.

Take my intellect and use

every power as You choose.

Chorus:

Here am I, all of me

Take my life, it's all for Thee.

Take my will and make it Thine

it shall be no longer mine.

Take my heart it is Thine own

it shall be Thy royal throne.

Take my love, my Lord I pour

at Your feet its treasure store

Take myself and I will be

ever, only, all for Thee.

Here am I, all of me.

Take my life, it's all for Thee

(Take my life, Lord take my life. Take all of me)

Here am I, all of me.

Take my life, it's all for Thee

The season of Thankfulness

They say wisdom comes with age and Proverbs 20:29b says, ". . . the gray hair of experience is the splendor of the old."  A few weeks ago when We as a family were traveling with my Mother in law we had made a pit stop at a Travel Plaza.  While there the lighting was pretty bright compared to the energy efficient light bulbs we have at home.  As I looked in the mirror I noticed quite a bit more gray in my hair than I'd realized I had!  I asked my M.I.L. Is it just the lighting in here or do I have this much gray hair?  She laughed and confirmed my fear that I did have that much, but quickly assured me that it looked real nice, kind of like I'd had a nice frost job done!  Thanks (I think)!

So now I wonder who gave me all these gray hairs, was it Steve or was it Michael?!  Between the two, of them I've earned every one of those gray hairs! ;)  There's an old Amy Grant song that was released around the time Steve and I were engaged.  It's  called, Oh How The Years Go By.  Part of the lyrics are,"Oh how the years go by. We fight, we laugh, we cry as the years go by..."  No, thankfully we rarely "fight" we've had our shares of laughter and great times together and we've tasted of the bitter cup of grief.  But through it all and by Gods hand we are still together after 18 years of marriage! And we are stronger for it because we've weathered the storms and have come through on the other side victorious! Now I will say this, were it not for God and His keeping grace we would not have weathered those storms!  We owe so much to God and His power to keep two totally different people and yet somehow make us one!  In regards to that old Amy Grant song the years definitely get better as they fly by!  We've both changed in many ways and for the good.  Steve has definitely helped me to grow into the person I am today and I really hope that I've been the same to him!

This is the season of Thankfullness and as I take a few moments to reflect on God's goodness in our lives, I feel so unworthy of God's blessings in my life! I thank Him for loving me when there was nothing good in me. I thank Him for daily helping me to grow and become more like Jesus!  I'm thankful God doesn't walk out on us, that He is patient and forgiving. That He doesn't settle for less
than our all!  Wow and I'm just getting started!

Then there's the blessing of being a wife and a mom, of having a husband who loves and provides for his family!  All of our needs God has provided for and many of our wants.  Oh may I never take Gods blessings in my life for granted!

I know for me personally through many years God is helping me to not be a complainer, and if you catch me complaining you have my permission to stop me in my tracks and call me on it!  But on the flip side of that is the aspect of thankfullness.  If I'm busy looking for the things to be thankful for, then maybe, just maybe I won't have time to notice the things nagging at me to complain about! A passage that God has used to challenge me in this area is, Phillipians 2:14-15, which says, "Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky.

Simply and honestly maybe with these new gray hairs that are the splendor of the old and indicate life's experience, are a way that God is making a new and better me. One who complains less and is more thankful.