Being Thankful on November 22

I’ve been an avid reader since I was very young. Reading is one of my favorite activities and it is also the way I learn best. I’m thankful today for the ability to read.

• Becky is thankful for her daughter and for music.
• Willow is thankful that she is on vacation and more.
• Ann is thankful for her daughter’s help in baking.
• Kim of The Upward Call is thankful for “parents who bring their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
• Connie is thankful for enjoyable relationships with her daughters.
• Dorothy is thankful that a cold bug is on the way out of her house.
• Julana is thankful for hot chocolate and more.
• Kim of Hiraeth is thankful for her basement refrigerator.
• Liz is thankful for her very nice JOY sign.
• Carla is thankful for her imperfect family.

What are you thankful for?

I’m celebrating good gifts from God during the month of November and hoping you’ll be thankful for your good gifts, too. Here’s how you can join in the thanksgiving and even, perhaps, get something material from it. If you’ve posted something you’ve posted something you’ve expected me to include and you don’t see it on the list, please let me know. It’s a lot to keep track of and I do miss things sometimes.

Being Thankful on November 21

Have you noticed that so many of the items listed on our thankful lists this month are what we might call “small mercies?” We call them small mercies, I think, because they are so commonplace that they don’t seem like a big deal. We go through our lives not taking much notice of them because we are surrounded by gifts like these day in and day out, every single minute.

But there is no substantial difference, you know, between the small mercies and the big miracles. They all come from the same place and by the same means—from the plan of God and by the power of God.

God’s powerful word “calls into existence the things that do not exist (Romans 4).” These are the sort of things we think of as the big miracles—the impossible things that are possible for God, like giving a biological son to Abraham and Sarah in their their old age.

But it is also God’s powerful word that “upholds the universe (Hebrews 1).” Everything that exists continues to exist only by God’s power. Day by day, minute by minute, he holds our everyday world together for us. We receive our small mercies by what we think of as ordinary means, but those ordinary means are the result of God’s decision and God’s energy just like the big miracles are. Our small mercies are a big deal.

What do we have that we did not receive? The right answer is nothing. Every single thing we have, whether it comes to us by way of big miracle or small mercy, comes to us from the mind and hand of our good God. And we are obligated to thank God for all of it.

So today I’m thankful for small mercies—all the works of God that are right now flying under my radar.

• Kim of Hiraeth is thankful for a big mercy.
• Julana, who runs a blog of many colours, is thankful for many things, including coffee shops.
• Dawn is thankful for her children.
• Liz is thankful for fuzzy slipper and more.
• Dorothy is thankful for the boiler.
• Connie it thankful for the company of friends.
• Becky is thankful for Awana.
• Kim of The Upward Call is thankful for Titus 2 ladies, both in real life and online.

What are you thankful for?

• Tulipgirl is thankful for God’s amazing mercy and more.
  

I’m celebrating good gifts from God during the month of November and hoping you’ll be thankful for your good gifts, too. Here’s how you can join in the thanksgiving and even, perhaps, get something material from it. If you’ve posted something you’ve posted something you’ve expected me to include and you don’t see it on the list, please let me know. I do miss things sometimes.

My Desktop Photo 34: Still on the Dempster Highway

Photo by Andrew Stark
(click on photo for larger view)