Real Thanksgiving

I will share a post about our weekend soon with pictures and all the usual stuff, but I felt led to share this instead. I love to write and have not written much in the last several years. Recently I have been writing short little essays (I am not sure I would call them essays, but I am not sure what else to call them) and I wanted to share one I wrote about being thankful. It was inspired by another writer I follow that wrote a similar post about being thankful. If you are not in the mood for some talk about God and thankfulness, than go ahead and skip it. I will have another less serious post soon :)

"Put him in time out. He needs to learn not to do that." My husband says immediately after our son throws a truck across the room. I quickly tell my son, "No!" and put him in his time out chair. Amidst crying and screaming I watch the clock until his 2 minutes of time out are up.

As a mother, hearing and seeing your child cry is not easy, no matter the circumstances. But I know discipline is necessary. I discipline him because I love him and it is needed to make him in to the person I want him to be. Does my son ever say, "Thank you Mommy for teaching me a lesson. That certainly will help sculpt me in to a well behaved boy."?

Ummmm.....No- definitely not. But he does say thank you when I give him a cup of juice.

It is so easy to be thankful for good things. I often close my eyes and thank God for the sunny weather, the wonderful dinner I had with my family, the perfect afternoon at the playground with my son, the delicious dinner we had with our friends, the shiny new car in our driveway. Those things are easy to be grateful for, they are comfortable, beautiful, and fun.

What has truly shaped me into the woman, wife, and mother that I am? Not those comfortable things. The days that have shaped me and taught me the most are the days when my foundation has been rocked. The days when I close my eyes at night and pray to God for help, strength, and faith. I don't usually thank God on those days.

Thank you God for the argument I had with my husband.

Thank you for the horrible review my manager gave me.

Thank you that we don't have enough money to pay the mortgage.

Thank you for my child's temper tantrum in the middle of Target.

Thank you for the death of my dog.

Thank you God for the fact that I don't fit in to my favorite jeans anymore.

Thank you God for the conflict I am having with my friend.

These are not prayers that God has ever heard from me. Yet as I reflect on my life, times like these were when God put his hands on me and sculpted me. My prayer should be:

Thank you God for continually molding me and for loving me enough to want to make me that woman you always intended me to be.

His priority is your peace, your wholeness, and your character. His purposes are good. His plan is perfect.

"So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness." Colossians 2:6-7