November 27 2013

November 27 2013
Greetings My Friend,
It is Thanksgiving again. It is a day we remember all the good things we
have been given and for me I tend to bring my thankfullness back to God.
I also try to say "thank you" each day as I pray. It is part of my prayers
and by telling God how thankfull I am about having a home to live in, all
the things in the home that help me live day to day and I do try to list
as many things as I can each day I find my focus in life is not about the
awfulness of life but the goodness of life. I start to see how much I truly
have and I don't feel the "woe is me" feelings like I used to.
I am gratefull that our country began this tradition many years ago. If I am
right I heard recently that Abraham Lincoln started it around 150 years ago.
If my thinking is right he started this in the midst of a civil war. Times
were hard for sure.
I do believe that making thankfullness needs to be part of our everyday life.
For me I tend to thank God and many times I say the same thank you's over and
over. It is the being thankfull that seems to work the most on my emotions rather
than specific things.
When I was first divorced I found it hard to be thankfull. I had been married
since I was 18 and at 40 I was terrified. I began my thankfull journal and slowly
life started to have texture again.

I still have moments of doubt and depression but by persisting in being thankful to
God and daily contact with God I know that there will be a day where life won't hurt
so much. This last bout of depression took me a few years to work through but through it all I
kept talking to God.
To me I sensed God directing me. I found a counselor, a doctor who truly seems to
understand my struggles health wise and even emotionally. One by one she started
working through a long list of struggles and today most of them are dealt with.
Some of my depression was fear of my ex. Some was two moves in two years to a brand
new to me state. Still other moments of depression was declining health issues. One
by one my doctor began to address my struggles. As we dealt with them I began finding
ways to do day to day life again.
The last struggle seems to be lack of energy and now that I know about Vitamin b 12
I have so much more energy. That said I still have bouts of total exhaustion but
these days I know how to work through that exhaustion and get back to a level playing
field.
At one point in my faith journey I truly believed that my life would be automatic healing
and no period of working through things. To be honest I am gratefull for the process of
dealing with all my struggles one at a time over a period of time. In that I learn new
things like how to deal with a problem. I learn to keep leaning on God and not rely on
my own knowldge and strength.
I continually marvel at God's perfectness in all things. I must admit at one point in my
life I thought that God was growing up alongside of us. Now though I realize that God
has all the answers and always did have all the answers.
As I wrap my brain around this I find God to be amazing. He knows me better than I know
myself which again is amazing. So the more I am thankfull I also find myself in awe of
God. I think it is neccessary to give God the glory and to me that is being thankfull and
praising God. As I tend to see God's perfection praise tends to flow out of my thanfullness
and at times they seem very entwined.
I use the ACTSS prayer format often. It helps me to bring more of my life to God. I have learned
that God does not want me to be perfect and He will beat me over the head if I am not. That was
hard for me to grasp. As I learned to name each sin I struggle with I have found ways to walk
away from some awful bad habitts in my life.
ACTSS stands for Accolades, Confession, Thanksgiving, Service and supplements. As I try to
walk through each piece I begin to have a fuller understanding of my faith journey and a
closeness to God grows within me. It is what I need to do.
Again I also find that we all come to God in our own way. He will guide us. When God told me
to pray through the cross I balked but God kept at me until I started praying through the cross
daily. I am gratefull He instructed me to do this and that I have done it for many years now.As
I look over my life I see where the Cross has always "spoke" to me. The cleaned up Jesus took
me in a wrong direction for a very long time. As the movie The Passion of Christ" came out I
found for me seeing the real horror of what our Savior endured has made me understand the true
price God paid for my life through His Son.
I begin to see how awful the smallest of sin is to God. I also see what may be in store for me
if I do not accept His Son's gift of the cross. To me the cross also teaches me what hell will
be like if I do not accept this gift.
As you are thankfull today I ask that you start being thankfull daily, not 30 days in November
but each and every day.
May God bless you and keep you.
Love
Janet