Thankful...

Life is full of choices... good, bad, plain... everything we do is a conscious choice. I don't always make the best choices; in fact, there are a lot of times I make the wrong ones which brings me into my title... thankful.

Thankful for the beautiful gift of a giant box of diapers that someone gave me today, thankful for the coupons for all things baby given to me by another person, thankful for the friend who so generously gave of her time to lend an ear, thankful for a large group of amazing children who learned so much today at VBS, thankful for an incredible group of volunteers who gave so generously of their time to make sure that God's plan unfolds this week in the lives of those amazing children, thankful that the broken light didn't fall and shatter, thankful that the microphone worked in assembly, thankful that Eli smiled at me and gave me a huge hug and kiss, thankful for safety of my family and the comfort of our home... Reading this list, you can see that I have a lot to be thankful for. This, I know to be true.

BUT... instead of remembering all of those wonderful blessing in my life I allow myself to become sidetracked into focusing on the little bit of negative that creeps in from time to time. I enlarge it in my mind and blow it up to the point that it looks so much larger than that long list of good/blessings from one day. Is this just plain human nature? Probably so... but I am realizing that when I become sidetracked, I cease to be effective, and when I cease to be effective, I am not living out the call that God has placed on my life. The truth is that if I stay focused on Him, the good is accentuated but when I focus on other things or people, the good isn't always accentuated. So...

Tonight I keep coming back to one of my very favorite songs and these lines keep running through my head: Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face and the things of Earth shall grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

If we all simply turned our eyes upon Jesus... the struggles of our daily lives wouldn't seem so daunting! This isn't an easy thing to do... we have to make a daily (sometimes moment to moment) choice to refocus our eyes on Jesus and allow the things in our lives that cloud our view to grow dim in the light of His glory and in His wonderful grace.

Thankful for His grace, His mercy, His forgiveness, His love, but most importantly I am supremely thankful for Jesus who laid down His life so that I could choose to follow Him.