Thursday, November 20, 2008

Thankful Thursday

This week, I've been too sick to do much of anything other than read, but still, I'm extra thankful for several things:

That my grandson Ryan’s surgery went well

That I don’t have to work when I'm sick, including caring for small children

For medicines that, although they don't cure my virus, do relieve the symptoms

For good friends

For the recent election of +Metropolitan Jonah

That despite the recession, I still have all the necessities of life

That I once again have Internet and phone service

For the sunroom, where I lay all morning today, on our new sofa, drowsing from my medicines while Demetrios, on the other side of the room, worked on his book

For the sunshine that flooded that room all day, making me happy

For the birds that sang all day, especially for the scream of the Red-tailed Hawk and the incredibly sweet music of the White-throated Sparrow

For cats who like to snuggle and seem to sense when someone is sick

For a certain Flying Squirrel who likes to snuggle, too


If you'd like to participate in Thankful Thursday, just go to the blog called Sting My Heart and add your blog to the list (so other participants can read your list). You can grab the logo either here or from that blog.

5 comments:

Denise said...

Praise God for taking care of your grandson.

Anastasia Theodoridis said...

Thank you, Denise - and Happy Birthday!

Anonymous said...

Well, in honor of Thankful Thursday, especially this next one, here is something I read often to remind myself about my own "life verse" as I've heard it called - one verse that jumped out at me one day and made a huge impact. And here's why:

In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
1 Thessalonians 5:18

“If you believe as I do that Scripture is the inspired Word of God, then we see this not as a random thought or an oddly clever idea of His servant, Paul, but as a loving command issued through the great apostle.

“Generally Christians understand that giving thanks is good and right. Though we don’t do it often enough, it’s easy to have a grateful heart for food and shelter, love and hope, health and peace. But what about the hard stuff, the stuff that darkens your world and wounds you to the quick? Just what is this everything business? It’s the hook. It’s the key. Everything is the word on which this whole powerful command stands and has its being.

“Please don’t misunderstand; the words thanks is crucial. But a deeper spiritual truth, I believe, lies in giving thanks in…everything. In loss of all kinds. In illness. In depression. In grief. In failure. And, of course, in health and peace, success and happiness. In everything. There’ll be times when you wonder how you can possibly thank Him for something that turns your life upside down…Let us then at times like these, give thanks on faith alone…obedient, trusting, hoping, believing. Perhaps you remember the young boy who was kidnapped and beaten and thrown into prison, yet rose up as Joseph the King, ruler of nations, able to say to his brothers, with a spirit of forgiveness, ‘You thought evil against me, but God meant it for good, that many lives might be spared.’ Better still, remember our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who suffered agonies we can’t begin to imagine, fulfilling God’s will that you and I might have everlasting life.

“Some of us have been in trying circumstances lately. Unsettling. Unremitting. Even, we sometimes think, unbearable. Dear God, we pray, stop this! Fix that! Bless us – and step on it! I admit to you that although I often thank God for my blessings, even the smallest, I haven’t thanked Him for my afflictions…I’ve been too busy begging Him to lead me out of the valley and onto the mountaintop…..I want to tell you I started thanking Him…for something that grieves me deeply. And I’m committed to continue thanking Him in this hard thing, no matter how desperate it might become, and I’m going to begin to look for the good in it. Whether God caused it or permitted it, we can rest assured – there is great good in it.

“Let’s look once more at the words God is saying to us…by looking at what our obedience to them will say to God. Our obedience will say, ‘Father, I don’t know why you’re causing, or allowing, this hard thing to happen, but I’m going to give thanks in it because You ask me to. I’m going to trust You to have a purpose for it that I can’t know and may never know. Bottom line, You’re God – and that’s good enough for me.’”

The sermon from In This Mountain, by Jan Karon

Anastasia Theodoridis said...

Thanks, dear sister. We'll all go far if we adopt this attitude.

Is that book one of the "Mitford" series?

Anonymous said...

Yes, it is one of the last in the series.