It has been a long time since I added to this list online, but have done so mentally going through my day.
♥ Fans in the window on a summer night.
♥ Pizza night with the family.
♥ Playing games with my children. (Phase 10, Upwords, Skip Bo, and Piffle [a 10,000 game using dice])
♥ Hearing my son playing worship music, by his choice.
♥ Being able to search the internet to find out what to do for my daughter after being stung by a scorpion.
♥ Favor with an acquaintance who helped us with our broken air conditioner and who God gave wisdom in how to fix it.
♥ Learning that I have been eating when I wasn't really hungry; learning to recognize both hunger and full and being able to lose weight eating all the wonderful foods that I love, by making myself behave and not the food.
♥ Watching my children learn this {true hunger and full cues} too.
♥ Sharing the funny parts of a book with my daughter.
♥ Talking with the children about Bible passages that I'm contemplating, and they share their opinions with me.
God is sooo good! We can look at how horrible something is and stay focused on that or we can find something to be grateful about in the midst of the situation. As the scripture says, "IN everything give Him thanks" (I Thes. 5:18). There is an old song that says, in the good times praise His name, even in the bad times do the same, in everything, give the King of kings, all the thanks. I hope that I am living my life in such a way that is bring thanks and praise to God.
Over on AHolyExperience blog, that I mentioned in my last post, Ann talks about A Thousand Gifts and challenges others to join her in making their own list of 1000 Gifts. She had a statistic quoted that people that keep gratitude journals are 25% happier and have fewer health complaints.
This goes along with one of the "gifts" in the book The Ultimate Gift that I've mentioned before. Here is what I copied from that book on "The Gift of Gratitude".
" . . . When we parted, I asked him why he was always in such good spirits. he told me that one of the great lessons his mother had left him was the legacy of the Golden List.
"He explained to me that every morning before he got up, he would lie in bed—or wherever he had been sleeping—and visualize a golden tablet on which was written ten things in his life he was especially thankful for. He told me that his mother had done that all the days of her life, and that he had never missed a day since she shared the Golden List with him." pg 124
I have heard of many people that write in a "Blessings Journal" or such each night but I think that thinking on these blessings or things for which I am grateful, in the morning, will put me in a more pleasant mood throughout the day.
So, I will start my own list of 1000 Gifts and I will add on as time goes by. Some I may not share, as they may be private but many I will share here. I hope this challenges you to start your own gratitude list.
♥ Jesus (He loves me so much he came, took my poverty, lack, sickness, disease, and sins on Himself, so that I don't have to have any of it and can be with Him forever.)
♥ Family (husband, children, parents, siblings, extended family)
♥ Friends (forever friends, church friends, lifelong friends, homeschooling friends, and internet friends)
♥ The property we live on (9.5 acres way out in the country)
♥ Our home
♥ The new rooms being added onto our home
♥ Vehicles that get us where we need to go without suffocating us in the summer or freezing us out in the winter
♥ The breeze on a beautiful warm day
♥ My computer and internet access
♥ Wonderful giving people on the internet that make homeschooling and learning affordable (in many instances giving things away for free)
Well, I'll stop with that for today. We'll see where this goes. I suspect that I will get a bit more detailed as I go along and those first 10 may turn into 50 or more. :) I have a lot of friends and family to be thankful for.
(Me and my dd, Tiffany on an easy to climb tree limb on vacation in VA in 2007.) These are my ramblings on homeschooling and whatever else comes to mind.
Counting Down
The Holidays are over and I'm not quite ready to start a new count down yet. Maybe I should start a counting up the number of days I've stayed on my "diet".
