Always Thankful

Are you always thankful for EVERYTHING that happens to you?  Your answer is probably the same as mine, no.  I am not always thankful for everything but am learning to be more thankful day by day.  I really have so much to be thankful for, my age is one thing, I come from a short lived family, my mother died at 72, all my immediate family are gone except for second cousins.  Some died sooner than 72.  So I feel very thankful that God has given me at least ten more years and I am hopeful for more to serve Him.  I am thankful for each new day and the good rest I receive each and every night.  It has not always been so. I am thankful to be able to blog about the precious Friend I have found in Jesus and so thankful for how the blogs have helped me have a closer walk with Him.  I am thankful for how He is saving my children, each in their own special way and their children and so on.  I am so thankful that my son has come to live with me and help me with my expenses as my home is being sold.  He could be putting money away for his future, but instead he helps a lot more than is required.  I am thankful that I have a serious buyer and he is just waiting for his loan to go through, I am learning patience in the process.  I have a little German shepherd friend that has had a serious illness and I thought I was going to have to put her down, but she is healing with the meds she is on and I am very thankful for that.  I could go on and on for lots and lots of things, my home, food, water, hot water to shower, etc.

How is your thankfulness doing?  Thought maybe me reiterating mine, might help you see some very important things for you to be thankful for, maybe not the same but similar.  Phillipians 4:4 says, "Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice."  Can we do that?  Did you know that if we let them, trials only bring us closer to Jesus.  Remember yesterday I spoke about the rod and staff of the Good Shepherd,  the Rod is to guide us and discipline us to keep us in the path of righteousness, it is not to beat us with, it is to reach out and tap us when we start to stray one way or the other,  the staff is to rescue us if we fall into a pit of sin and He pulls us out with His staff with the crook in it.  Isn't that something to be thankful for?  I think so.  We are safe by His side, in His presence as we have learned day by day and it is helping me so much to stay there.  I love sharing with you and am so thankful that I can and I hope I will be able to continue doing it with God's help, of course.  So many things to be thankful for and rejoice over.  Are you more thankful now than when you began to read.  I hope so.  Let us always be thankful and our heart will be so much more lighter and we will have a gleam of happiness in our eyes that have long been gone.  Be ye thankful and rejoice evermore, is my prayer for you.  Grandma Joan