What are you Thankful for this Year

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Being as how it is almost Thanksgiving, What are you thankful this year? I am Thankful for My family and friends, my job,and second chances.

-- mindy (speciallady@countrylife.net), November 15, 2001

Answers

I am thankful for God taking time with me :o) I am thankful I live in America. I am thankful we live in the country, since I love to garden.. I am thankful for my children all being healthy, I am thankful for a great husband. I am thankful for forgiveness, since I tend to learn by doing. :o)

-- notnow (notnow05@yahoo.com), November 15, 2001.

e-mails from you

-- Cindy (S.E.IN) (atilrthehony@countrylife.net), November 15, 2001.

Hello Mindy, I am thankful for my families good health. I am thankful that our house is finished enough that we can live it it this winter. I am thankful that our garden harvest and chickens were abundant enough to feed us during the winter season. Sincerely, Ernest

-- http://communities.msn.com/livingoffthelandintheozarks (espresso42@hotmail.com), November 15, 2001.

So many things to be thankful for!! Sometimes I think I am embarassingly blessed with so many good things. Healthy, happy, truly good children, a wonderful husband, good health, a home in the country, good people, plenty of everything, more than I ever imagined!!!!

Blessed hope for the future, good books to read, kind friends to enjoy, freedom to pursue my dreams, opportunities to pursue. Trials and troubles to teach, stretch, and expand myself. Courage to face tomorrow with high hopes.

-- Melissa (me@home.net), November 15, 2001.


I 'm thankful for salvation through Jesus Christ and the peace that I can have through that. i'm also thankful that through our weaknesses, Gods strength is made perfect. I'm thankful for a great family , and food, and my cat, I'm thankful that i have fingers so i can play piano, and i'm thankful we have a piano. I'm thankful for a beautiful world, and that once in a while people want to take care of it. In All things give thanks!!

-- jillian (sweetunes483@yahoo.com), November 15, 2001.


I am thankful for Jesus Christ and forgiveness.I am thankful for friends,family,health,blessing,a home,a wonderful son, and also second chances. I hold each day as a blessing and close to my heart.

-- Micheale from SE Kansas (mbfrye@totelcsi.net), November 15, 2001.

I am thankful that God has given us a church for Tom to pastor. We have been striving toward this goal for about 12 years. The people have welcomed us and all our children with wide open arms. Tom is home more and can help with homeschooling and other parenting tasks. He is no longer coming home from an exhausting 12-16 hour day of work too sore to climb upstairs.

I am thankful for a faithful, loving husband who married me on Thanksgiving Day 15 years ago. And for the six children God has given us.

I am thankful for friends and family and a place to really call home after being on the move for fourteen years.

I am thankful that we were finally able to start some "real" homesteading with animals and garden this year.

-- Cathy N. (keeper8@attcanada.ca), November 15, 2001.


I'm thankful for being given the gift of being able to be happy with what I have. It's so much nicer to live this way than in constant want of more and more. I'm thankful for the absolutely wonderful young man my daughter married in May. I'm thankful my son has a great job lined up for his May graduation from Purdue University. I'm thankful my daughter is doing well in her first year of law school at Indiana University. I'm thankful I have the health and ability to work and earn a living. I'm thankful for the partner I have in one business. I'm thankful I don't have one in the other. I'm thankful for a fine group of friends. I'm thankful to be spending Thanksgiving with my Mom in her eighty-second year. I'm thankful for the world in which I live, with all of it's flaws.

-- Gary in Indiana (gk6854@aol.com), November 15, 2001.

This year has been very difficult for us. My Dad died in February. But I am so thankful for the blessings that have come our way since then. My Mom has begun to attend church regularly. Friendships have become more dear. My brother told me that he loved me for the first time in my life (he's 39, I'm 33). We bought a house. The only debt we have is our mortgage, which will be paid off in 9 years. God is surely good!

-- Jo (mamamia2kids@msn.com), November 15, 2001.

I am thankful that I had a good mother who raised my brothers and sisters and me to be Christians. I am thankful that we finally made it to the country. I am thankful for a good husband that takes good care of me. I am thankful for the freedoms we have.

-- Janet in Kansas (whisperingpines@terraworld.net), November 15, 2001.


Mindy, below is an article I published several years ago that sums it up for me. It's a bit longer than the normal post, but I preferred to post it than to include a link. I don't know if it would have been better to do the latter. I ask that if people want to reproduce it, check with me first. I'm pretty easy about permissions, but I do like people to ask. I say that because this has been printed around the Internet without my knowledge. Blessings!


“Why Me, Lord?”
by Randal Matheny

I have a wonderful wife who works hard to teach our children, maintain a home and accompany me when I give studies and classes, who prays for me, cares for me, notices my needs and moods, serves me daily in love and tenderest care. Why me, Lord?

I have three beautiful kids, healthy, strong, well-mannered, polite, bright, chatty, even an adolescent who likes to talk to his parents and at 15 works with his dad because he wants to; kids who love the Lord and serve in his church and invite their friends to Bible studies; kids who like to sing praises and study the Word. Why me, Lord?

I have loving parents who taught me right, instilled values and love of God, who disciplined me when I did wrong, who praised my achievements, who worked hard to give me a chance in the world and pushed me out with encouragement to be and to do. Why me, Lord?

I have grandparents who gave me roots, who always welcomed me with open arms, who piqued my curiosity for knowledge, praised my erect posture, brought me close to the good earth and taught me respect for manual labor done with pride. Why me, Lord?

I have a nice home where everybody has a place to sleep, a table to put their feet under, food to put on the table, comforts galore, clothes abundant, good neighbors, paved streets, running water and electricity and even sewage and telephone. Why me, Lord?

I have a satisfying work, sufficient salary for basic needs, supportive colleagues, a positive work climate, opportunities for growth, study tools, open doors, challenging tasks, a rewarding job. Why me, Lord?

I live in an open society, free to live and work as I see fit, to come and go as I please, to choose my path and my future, to develop my self, to contribute to the common good, to have compassion on the underprivileged, to make a difference in my community and participate in the process of lifting up law and order. Why me, Lord?

I have a spiritual family where my faults are gently corrected, my strengths are appreciated and used, my growth is encouraged, my talents employed and my presence acknowledged with joy and gladness; a circle of like-minded people who see above the trials to light upon an eternal hope, through a deep faith grounded in love of truth and justice as shown in One single Man, around whom revolves the entire universe. Why me, Lord?

I have a Savior, about whom I cannot say enough, who brings heaven to earth and carries me to celestial heights, whose humility breaks open the glories of eternal treasures, whose perfection completes my starts and stops, whose holiness covers my impurites, whose death causes life to appear in the most unlikely hearts, whose resurrection pumps hope through my spiritual veins every vital second of this earthbound timeframe which one day will dissolve into everlasting bliss; yes, I have a Savior, who is friend, counsellor, mentor, judge, Lord, companion and leader who constantly suprises me, all rolled into one. Why me, Lord?

Why me, Lord? Why all these blessings piled one on top of another, renewed daily and more abundantly than if dump trucks unloaded them in unending lines?

Why me, Lord? Blessings in order to bless, to become a pipeline of promise, a harbinger of hope, to stoke up fires of faith. Blessings which are instruments to play the spiritual tune that gladdens the heart, lightens the step and echoes your divine voice of sweet invitation to nothing less than your full presence, glorious and majestic, the likes of which we can only now imagine.

Why me, Lord? Grace, pure grace, poured out because of who you are, not because of our prime performance. Mercy, tender mercy, unexplainable, but attainable. This, the final wonder of it all.



-- Randal (randal@rhyme.cjb.net), November 16, 2001.

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