Thankful

Thanksgiving is just three days away and I wanted to share something I've very thankful for. There were 5 referrals last week!! Can you even believe it? :) That puts us at number 29. It's great to know that we are moving up the list.

Yesterday in church we had a guest speaker and he talked about how the first pilgrims stopped and thanked God before even getting off the Mayflower. That amazed me. They had not even stepped foot onto the new land that would be called their home and they were already thanking God. They had no idea what trials and hardships they would face but they were thanking God. They didn't know where their next meal would come from, if there was even enough natural supplies to build shelter for all of them, or if the land would produce good enough crops to be able to feed them and help them store up during the winter, but they were thanking God.

Do we follow in their example? Do we thank God when we have no idea what the hardships are going to be? Do we thank Him when we don't know if all our needs are going to be met or do we tell Him all about how we should have more? Do we thank Him for the everyday things that we think are mundane but to someone across the ocean seem huge?

I have been reading through Ann Voskamp's "One Thousand Gifts" and it has been very eye-opening, humbling, and exciting to see what God did in her life and think about how if I followed her example, what He could do in mine. I have tried to be very conscious about thanking Him in all things...the little and the big. And I have tried to be even more aware of the great blessings He has bestowed upon us that we take for granted.

I don't know if I'll get back to blog more before Thanksgiving...we are taking our "sabbath week" from school this week and I have several projects that I want us to work on before we begin again. Plus, we are celebrating Thanksgiving in several ways this year and I plan on spending a lot of time in my kitchen. But I wanted to leave you with the passage from the service yesterday. I pray that you will let the words sink in and speak to your heart. It's the passage that those pilgrims prayed all those years ago but they are still so relevant today. May you be blessed today!

Psalm 100

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth

Worship the Lord with gladness;

come before Him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God.

It is He who made us and we are His.

We are His people, the sheep of His pasture.

Enter His gates with thanksgiving and

enter His courts with praise;

give thanks to Him and praise His name.

For the Lord is good and His love endures forever;

His faithfulness continues through all generations.