I am grateful for my “Jesus Calling” devotional. Here was today’s, so timely:
When you are plagued by a persistent problem – one that goes on and on – view it as a rich opportunity. An ongoing problem is like a tutor who is always by your side. The learning possibilities are limited only by your willingness to be teachable. In faith, thank Me for your problem. Ask Me to open your eyes and your heart to all that I am accomplishing through this difficulty. Once you have become grateful for a problem, it loses its power to drag you down. On the contrary, your thankful attitude will lift you up into heavenly places with Me. From this perspective, your difficulty can be seen as a slight, temporary distress that is producing for you a transcendent Glory never to cease!
Though the Lord gave you adversity for food and suffering for drink, he will still be with you to teach you. You will see your teacher with your own eyes. Your own ears will hear him. Right behind you a voice will say, “This is the way you should go,” whether to the right or to the left. – Isaiah 30:20-21
For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! – 2 Corinthians 4:17
I am grateful for my Bingo friends and for time spent with them last night. Oh, how they make me laugh with their grouchy personalities, serious Bingo-playing, and the occasional Hazel-isms that make no sense. They all surprised me in the middle of our time together with a most beautiful Christmas gift that made me cry, a wreath with each of their pictures attached:
I am grateful for a beautiful little girl named Tatum Diane who came to visit with her parents on Sunday afternoon. They actually came to see her great-grandma Drula, but we were privileged to have some time with her, too. I wish she could have stayed longer.
I am grateful for silence and the lack of excessive noise in my life.
I am grateful that my Mom taught me to iron pillowcases and handkerchiefs. I have great memories of sitting on the floor in the front room after taking my Saturday night bath, ironing Daddy’s handkerchiefs and some pillowcases while I was allowed to watch Lawrence Welk, Hee Haw, and the Carol Burnett Show. The good ‘ol days…
Which reminds me, I am grateful that my parents instilled in me a work ethic to follow in their footsteps. They taught me how to work hard at cleaning the house and how to work hard and not waste time for an employer, but to LOOK for something to do, rather than sit around and wait to be told. (AND, I can clean a mean windshield.) If I wanted money, I had to earn it – it wasn’t just handed to me because I was their daughter. If I wanted “things,” I had to work to earn the money to get those “things” myself or wait until my birthday or Christmas to re-stock my closet or have the latest must-have gadgets or toys. Well, with the exception of Sunday afternoons during business meetings at church when I would ask if Lori and Leroy and David and I could walk to the Quik Shop and Dad almost always gave me some money for a snack and a drink. That was a bonus!
I am grateful for public radio’s “This American Life” stories that I sometimes listen to on Sunday mornings on my way back to church for choir rehearsal.
I am grateful for two guys who stopped in this morning and gave us five mini Jimmy John’s sandwiches – for free! What a great marketing tool. I don’t really like Jimmy John’s sandwiches because they are cold, but today, I am less superficial and I will love them.
Okay, they do have a couple of things I like. One, if you order for delivery, they are what they say they are – freaky fast. And, if you haven’t tried it, their Club LuLu as a lettuce wrap is really the only thing you ever need to order there, because it is SO GOOD. (Not for you, Dad…it has turkey and bacon in it.)
So, after all that, I am grateful for an unexpected free lunch today. Thank you, guys dressed in black who have the most fun job ever today, making people happy with surprise sandwiches.
rhondaisgrateful 