What makes you Thankful?

What makes you thankful this week?

Is there anything new in your life that is causing you to say "thank-you" to the Father in Heaven?

My list is short this week because of time restraints but there is so very much I am truly thankful for: family, friends, church leaders, the new school year, the weather, good health, financial security, which in this economy is a huge blessing, Scripture, the power of prayer.

But...there are a few things I want to give special thanks to this week:

• this study book. This is a book for women on the topic of "restoration" and finding healing from the Lord because of past hurts or sins. Things like abuse, adultery, betrayal, unforgiveness. I just started this with one of my best friends. We both need this study and we are expecting God to do great things with this time we have set aside. I thank God that He gives us those kinds of friends in which we can be real, and share the deep things from our hearts. I thank Him for His healing power and for being a Father to us when we don't "feel" like His children or when it is difficult to view Him as a father. I am so thankful that I can come alongside someone and share some of my own struggles and can relate some of what He has shown me....and I am thankful she can do the same! I am expecting God to move in a mighty way in the next few months.
  

• My oldest daughter: I am so thankful that God me my darling Courtney. She reported to me that there were not alot of students gathered around the flagpole this year (see post below this one). But...she is not discouraged about that. She is very sad about some things that have happened in our youth group at church. But I think she knows that she is loved unconditionally by God and that her dad and I are here for her. She keeps pressing in...she is very persistant in her faith. She was also not worried at all about the peers who would jeer. She said it happened last year but she was not worried about it. She does not let other people get in her way! I LOVE that about her......I am thankful that God gave her a heart for her school and her peers and that she wants to take a stand for Jesus Christ.

• Time with my husband: I am so thankful, because it is so rare, that Dave and I had almost all of last Saturday to kayak together and just spend that time talking, relaxing and laughing together. It is something every marriage needs and that most of us just don't do on a consistent basis because we are just so darn busy! but...our Christian marriages are a covenant relationship...and God is in the midst of it. Our marriage is not perfect by any means nor am I the perfect wife nor Dave the perfect husband. Nope! In fact, no ones is! There is no marriage on this earth that is perfect. We are all sinners! We need God to stay in the center...and sometime He gets a bit off-center in our marriages,dosn't He? because of us. So....although things are not perfect, Dave and I do try to carve out time every couple of months to just be together. With no children. To try and NOT talk about the children. (which is hard!). We focused on just us. Everyone needs this! I am thankful we had that time.....because the next month is busy and he won't be around much during the weekends :) I am thankful for the time we DO have and my goal is to overlook the stuff that "bugs" me about him, and try to meet his love language daily. I am thankful for the husband God gave me.

How about you?
Leave me a comment with at least one thing you are thankful for!!

And enjoy this gorgeous weather!