renewing the gratitude list

months ago I was posting a list of ten things to be grateful for every week.

Sometimes it was simple stuff, like oatmeal cookies.

Sometimes I tried to be profound.

I got lazy after a while and stopped posting those lists.

Well today, in the face of my husband losing his job to the concept of  “reductions in force”  I thought it might be a good time to dust that gratitude list idea off, and bring it back to my blog.

1. Money not spent – Saturday we looked at a phone upgrade, but decided to hold off because a better one for our “needs” was coming out in a few weeks.  Now we are very glad that we didn’t spend the money.

2. Money not spent (part 2) –  I have been bugging my husband to buy our plane tickets for an upcoming wedding in October and a Christian Women’s event I want to go to in January.  He had put it off one more week…and here again, we are very glad because that money will be needed to pull us through.  I still desperately want to go, but I’m gonna have to trust God that if HE wants us to go, He will make it happen.

3. Scripture – Monday morning, before we knew anything was going to happen, I choose (or the Holy Spirit chose for me?) a memory verse for the next two weeks: Exodus 33:18 “Lord I pray thee, show me your glory”

4. Health –  We are all healthy.  When I think of all the things that could have gone wrong in our lives, when I think of families out there who only have one income…..I am so grateful that nothing worse happened to us.

5.  Friends – people have been very supportive.  Some folks I was expecting, and others that I wasn’t.  It’s a nice surprise when people tell you they care.

6.  Sense of humor – Martin has an amazing sense of humor.  He has been constantly engaged in cheering me up.  He even invented a game while we were snuggled down, each reading a separate book, that you have to kiss your partner in order to start a new chapter.  My husband is so silly, and sweet.

7.  Songs from the past – Monday morning I put in a CD that I haven’t heard in years.  Twila Paris’s  “The Warrior is a Child”  It blessed me Monday.  But it blessed me even more today when I had to drive to work on my own, without my best friend, my Martin, in the car.

the drive this morning was hard.  Martin has been there with me (since we worked at the same campus) for the commute for over five years.  That’s almost 4000 hours of relating, talking, singing, devotions, and just plain old enjoying each other’s company.

This is where depression kicks in for me.  I’m a people person.  and Martin is one of my favorite peoples.

Still……I’m saying all the right things.

“yes, we are gonna be fine”

“God will provide”

“God is good, even in this.”

and I do mean them.

but I occasionally feel sorry for myself.  Which is wrong.  And it is why I’m writing this list of things to be grateful for.  To try to re-adjust my brain.

Please be in prayer for a teenaged friend of ours.  She was tree climbing and fell from about three stories up.   She has had one surgery already and many more are in future.  Pray for her family.  Her name is Caitlin.  She is in highschool.

which goes a long way to putting my “situation” in perspective.  So many worse things could be happening in my life than to have a husband who has to stay home for a week or two and find a different job.

So Thank you Lord.  And please lay your healing hands on Cait and wrap your comforting arms around her family.

amen.