Thankfulness!

Tis the Thanksgiving season and I am in the mood to be a cheerful, positive, and very thankful person. Facebookers have this "post something your thankful for on your status" thing that I'm doing and I am trying to create the Thankful spirit in our home! I see that when I am thankful, I am content! I found so many verses on Thankfulness in the Bible.

Colossians 3:15 And let peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.

Hebrews 12:28 Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping Him with holy fear and awe.

So instead of the Thankful garland that I was going to do all over the ceiling, John had a better idea. He cut down a small tree (shrub tree) that was growing in the back yard. He put it in a pot, put sand all around it in the pot to make it stand up straight, stripped most of the leaves off and brought it in the house. It is our Thankful tree, sort of like a Christmas tree. Each night we are writing on paper leaves (cut out and colored by the kids) one thing that we are each thankful for and hanging it on our tree. I will take a picture of it when it has more "leaves" on it and post it. It looks really cool!

I also decided last night as I was writing what I as thankful for on facebook that I needed to share it with my husband. He is not a fellow facebooker so I thought of a quick sweet way to show him my thankfulness. I wrote in dry erase marker on our bathroom mirror last night.....John, I am thankful that you will come home after working a 12 hours shift and cook me breakfast, thank you and I love you! I am going to do it every night as I brush my teeth!

My friend Harriet and I were talking a few weeks ago about husbands and marriage. We were discussing the strengths and weaknesses of our husbands...I make it a habit to never talk down about my husband to anyone but this was a open discussion and very positive. One of her husband's strengths was that he is very romantic and is good about surprising her with a romantic evening...however, he is not as good at the everyday stuff like cooking dinner etc. My John is an everyday servant. He is very engaged in the everyday occurrences in the home and goes out of his way to serve me! However, my John isn't a big gift giver or big surprise, romantic night kind of a guy. Now John can be very romantic. And he has surprised me with some really cool things but you get what I mean....we discussed how if we (meaning women) can stop complaining and nagging them (husbands) about what they are NOT and start encouraging them and focusing on what they ARE, then life is so much better. Would I really want to give up the everyday help that he lends me for one surprise night out. I read this book called "Love and Respect" not to long ago and its premise was this. A man's greatest desire is to be respected and a woman's greatest desire is to be loved. If a man is not showing love to his wife, then she in return starts disrespecting him and if the woman shows disrespect to her husband then he isn't all that willing to show love. If we strive to watch out for each other and think highly of each other then the cycle should have great reward! So with this in mind, I desire to focus on the many things I have to be thankful for in my husband and all the many blessings we have as a family.