100 Things I'm Thankful

I'm thankful for:

1. For my wonderful husband
2. For my son; who brings more joy than ever imaginable.
3. For Jesus in my life
4. For growing up in a Christian family and having to deal with legalistic hiccups and not too many liberal ones :)
5. For Chad's family and how different they are from mine
6. For grandparents to my son who love him
7. For those grandparents loving to spend time with him
8. For lots of siblings and their spouses
9. For being an aunt
10. For job #1; even if I don't always enjoy it
11. For job #2 and wish it was more
12. For our house and the prospect of selling it
13. For decent financial decisions in our married life
14. For old friends who can show up on Thanksgiving morning and makes you late for family, but was totally worth catching up.
15. For new friends, but kinda old (at least for Chad) that you can just relax with.
16. For enjoying to cook but not always having to do it.
17. For our church.
18. For our life and how simple it can be
19. For the flexibility that is being created in my ventures
20. For learning to relax and be free
21. For our wonderful dog, Gustav
22. For our other wonderful dog, Stout
23. For feeling free to name our dog Guiness Stout because he looked like a stout beer: so dark brown that he almost looked black with a little white "foam" at the top.
24. For some lazy weekdays mornings of snuggling in bed with my husband and son
25. For having an intelligent and healthy child
26. For having a funny son.
27. For learning to be free to spend money sometimes
28. For Chad caring more about his health now than before we were married; I want him around for a while.
29. For having learned to think I'm kinda special.
30. For having learned to let some things go
31. For learning that it really wasn't about me anyways
32. For being able to be free to make traditions work with our crazy schedule
33. For being fine with just me
34. For being open to change
35. For having loved ones around that have pushed me towards being who I am
36. For having loved ones who don't care if I change or not.
37. For being okay with a not so perfect home
38. For loving to love children
39. For getting to tell children about Jesus
40. For teaching children how to worship Jesus.
41. For little rebellion in my life
42. For new opportunities on the horizon
43. For trying new things
44. For questioning what is to be just because it's always been
45. For being able to spend so much time with Steven
46. For new opportunities for spending time with Chad
47. For interruptions in life; especially when the interruption is Steven or Chad
48. For be able to laugh at absurdities.
49. For being contradictory
50. For trying to never settle
51. For a very full life
52. For being given a lot of responsibility as a child/adolescent.
53. For being able to crash friends' Family Thanksgiving
54. and for being asked to join in :)
55. For Chad and I both wanting a real Christmas Tree
56. For learning to be spontaneous
57. For learning to emotions are good...but in moderation
58. For growth
59. For health
60. For seeing the joy Steven brings everyone he meets
61. For not feeling the need to do Black Friday shopping
62. For slowing down life
63. For letting the dishes stay in the sink, sometimes
64. For a good hairdresser; even if I don't go enough
65. For being able to see the absuridty in Sister Wives
66. For being able to admire Michelle Duggar
67. For wanting to be like her, but not wanting to be like her
68. For the hope of becoming a better person each year
69. For a husband who cleans,
70. cooks,
71. does the laundry,
72. bringing my coffee to me in bed even after 7 years of marriage,
73. him being an awesome father,
74. and the anticipation of giving him the opportunity to be a father to more children in the future (just not now)
75. For beer
76. For Tupperware
77. For good role models for my son
78. For my son's teachers and never having to worry about him in their care
79. For music
80. and sharing it with children
81. For learning the office at the office
82. For learning my weaknesses
83. For splurging sometimes
84. For staying up late
85. For going to bed early
86. For crafting
87. For vacation
88. For good health
89. For good healthcare
90. For trying not to be absurd
91. For knowing that I might sometimes be
92. For being open
93. For being convicted
94. For love 
95. For being compassionate
96. For Christmas and the opportunity to celebrate Jesus' birth
97. For laughter
98. For knowing who I am; well for the most part
99. For life and striving to not live mediocre.
100. For taking this challenge and allowing it to make me more thankful 
     
     

Soul Aeration

I've been thinking of my soul as it pertains to God; not my eternal status, but right now status.  In Sunday School this past week we were talking about God's will and such and then read Jeremiah 29:11 (New International Version) "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. " We were talking about how it's not necessarily talking about our physical or material wealth; someone even said how maybe he's talking about prospering our soul.  I struggle with that; especially recently.  Nothing huge is the matter, but I don't feel like my soul is being prospered or taken care of by God. Much less others who have been through or are going through such difficult things right now.  But I've been wrestling with this because they all speak of how God's done mighty things in their life through their difficult situations. 

Our lawn is in need of aeration and I'm not totally changing the subject here. I wasn't exactly sure what that means, but it is the process of poking holes into the ground, which in turn allows for your grass to grow better. I looked it up and one article says that you aerate to allow one or more of the following to happen:


•Oxygen gets to the roots and the soil allowing it to "breathe"
•Organic fertilizers and nutrients get access to the root system
•Water is able to better soak the soil and reach the root system
•Helps to break up thatch
•Tight, compacted soil is loosened up allowing the root system to grow

Could my soul need aeration? Could it be that my soul is being poke and proded to allow oxygen to get to the deeper parts of my soul? For it to be fertilized more deeply? For water to penetrate so deep that even the deepest darkest parts of my soul are prospered? Allowing me to grow deeper with God?  Is this what is happening when friends face cancer and grow closer to each other and God? When an 8 year old whose fighting cancer's parents speak of God's strength for survival?  Is He aerating our souls? Is this how he prospers us and gives us a hope for the future?

The screaming inside

For the past year there have been screams inside telling me to go; telling me to change; telling me to do it. The problem has been not knowing exactly what the it was.  I feel the calling and have "forever" but not knowing exactly what it is.  Last night at the Vision Dinner for Campus Crusade I was stirred; stirred to where we gave almost triple what we walked in having decided to give and wanted to give more.  Over five years ago, I started working for a psychologist.  I felt my calling was to do all the administrative tasks so that he could minister to the hurting people of the world in a way I could never minister.  In the past year though, the business services have changed and we aren't ministering to many people  through counseling; I would beg to say not really ministering to people at all.  I recently told a friend anyone could help people get social security disability why with my passion and desire to make a difference do I need to be working here to help them. 

At the close of the program I leaned over to Chad and said I'm tired of mediocre giving.  There's always been a reason why we didn't have money to give more.  We were working towards this or that; not making much money, etc.  But right now due to my dissatisfaction with making a difference, I've been trying to find a way to make a bigger difference.  Through this process I've taken on a 10 hr/week position at our church in children's ministry.  I wish it was full time. This position is not paid much; it's "just" an internship, but it's money we hadn't budgeted for, so we don't really need it and I've purposely kept it out of the budget so that we could pay down some debt, spend it on Christmas, etc.  But I think there is a bigger purpose in this.  I think that it needs to be my bigger; making a difference portal.  It could change our giving pattern from mediocre to where I feel we're really doing something.  I'm not really sure where that money is going to go, but for about six months we're going to try it. 

I am going to cut back my hours a bit at the office to make life more manageable for when Chad's on nights, but then the rest of that "extra" income is going to be donated. To where? We haven't decided.  Because while we don't have a lot of money; we never will, but we have enough and we're really happy with the level of simplicity in our lives.  We have what we need, so why shouldn't we give to a ministry that has had 97 college student conversions in this school year alone; who goes to East Asia and sees an incredible level of meaningful conversions; or houses people who live in cardboard boxes; or reaches people in some of the most heart hardened areas of the world; or gives Christian families to children who have been hurt so much and have so little.  There are so many places we could give it's overhwelming.  But I want to answer the screaming inside by giving, because that is what I can do. And we will do until another calling happens.

Now I'm not trying to boast on our giving, but rather share the burden on my heart to where maybe you can relate.  I do feel we are all called to do different things and I've never thought our calling was to be "big givers" and I'm sure some people wouldn't call this big, but it's big for where we are.  I'm tired of mediocre and I'm tired of being unable to answer the screams; so we're giving more than we have before and hopefully can be a part of bigger change. On a video last night someone said "I'll never be the same" I hope that this will happen to our family and to the others our gifts minister to.