Give Thanks.

I would like to take the opportunity of not having anything else in mind to post to anticipate Thanksgiving with some things for which I am thankful. I've been preaching the need for thankfulness a lot lately (more on that later, perhaps). And I must continually preach this to myself ... "Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love! Take my heart, o take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above."

I'm thankful (in no particular order): for my family, for my dog, for my church, for my city, for my job, for my friends from WTS, for the college friends that I still have, for the many gross errors from which God has saved me over the past years, for kindred spirits and fellowship in the Spirit, for the joy of eating, for driving down Shiloh every morning with a great view of the Beartooths (what a way to start off a day! ... usually there is a V-formation of geese flying over a field, too), for the potential to meet my new neighbors, for the upcoming holiday, that my brother is coming home at Christmas, that we will be celebrating Thanksgiving with fun friends, that I love to read and can do it a lot, for families that have let me into their lives, for my young friends at church who make me smile, for my sweet Spanish class that I missed this week, for getting to hear about amazing mission opportunities and God's powerful work around the world, for the fact that God constantly forgives me when I forget to praise and thank him, for times that God helps me to set aside to study his Word, for warm fire places, hot chocolate and movies on cold days, for having a warm and beautiful place to live, for flowers, for fun and laughter, for comic strips, for music and that I can enjoy such talent in some people, for the assured hope of progressive sanctification, for traveling and global diversity...

For Christ's shed blood on the cross, through which comes to me a living hope and every good and perfect gift for which I give thanks.