Thursday Thanksgiving

Several good friends this week have shared with me that God had convicted them they need to have more grateful hearts. My first reaction was very self-righteous--despite my efforts to get them to read my blog--most of my friends still have no idea what a blog is--so they don't know I do a list most every Thursday.

As I listened to each of them--I have been convicted--there's so much in my life lately I've not been thankful for--and God is calling me to bring my thankful heart to a new level. I am just so thankful that God uses our friends to convict on things like this!

One of my co-workers told me, "I've not been thankful for my job and I need to be." I can join her on that one. I am thankful for what my job allows me to do (like hop on planes to Hawaii and get sand in my ears). Our jobs, however, are stressful, gut-wrenching and exhausting. I know God wouldn't put me through all that for no reason--and I try to be thankful for the lessons He teaches me--but I am not always. I want to be thankful that sometimes He just uses me there to reach out to people that have some pretty desperate life problems. I want to be thankful I have a job--so many people don't have jobs with our declining economy.

There are some other things in my life that aren't easy--I want to be thankful and trust God in is His faithfulness and sovereignty has plans I can't see--can't understand right now.

I am thankful this week for all the encouragement I've had to be more thankful. It's the encouragement I've needed. Gratefulness changes my perspective so much--a little bit of thankfulness is good--but I pray my thankful heart will be so overflowing it will bless those around me just a wee bit, too!