Weekly Gratitude Journal

On any given moment on any given day, if we base our judgment of God's character on our circumstances or our feelings, instead of being the unchangeable God who is the same yesterday, today and forever, our circumstances or our feelings can convince us that God is good one moment and unkind, uncaring or even cruel the next. Of course, satan and mankind's willful disobedience to God and His ways is the root cause of all the sin sickness in our world, but God is the one who usually gets the blame. "If God is good why did He allow this bad thing to happen to me?" is a question we have all asked at one time or the other. Unmet expectations are the undoing of many relationships and when our unmet expectations are about how we think God should behave, well, as C.S. Lewis said He is "not a tame lion" and rarely behaves the way we think He should. Yet the Bible declares that He is perfect in all of His ways. In other words, His ways of thinking, reacting and responding are always perfect while ours are fallible. His motives and intentions are always pure and good and right, while, once again, ours are fallible. His plans, desires, longings and purposes are perfect, and yes, once again, ours are not. Life on sin-twisted planet earth has scarred us all. We have all been hurt and betrayed by others. We have all experienced heart breaking loss of one kind or another. We have all been touched by sorrow and grief. Yet in the middle of this messy planet all that is beautiful and good and lovely and loving is constantly testifying to us of God's goodness -testifying to those who have eyes to see. Testifying of His beauty and His steadfast love that endures forever. Let us have eyes to see and a heart that responds to Him and His goodness with gratitude.

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Since 2009 I've been counting my blessings thanks to the prompting of Ann Voskamp.

 I continue to count my thanks, 

piling up gratitude day by day in my journal.

(and capturing some of my blessings via my camera or iPhone)

#15,816-#15,840

6-13-2021-

- a beautiful, encouraging morning preparing for tomorrow night's meeting with the women of our church

-good conversations with my sister and another with a trusted friend 

-a long, brisk walk

-texts with my oldest grandson

6-14-2022-

-our strong support system

-a morning that started out with a disastrous coffee spill on the carpet

 but didn't ruin or spoil my choice to have a good day

-a decided, definite shift from the old into the new in our gathering tonight

-new faces at our gathering

6-15-2022-

-beach therapy! We took the day off and went to Lincoln City!

-so many encouraging texts about last night's meeting

-our beautiful Pacific Northwest

6-16-2022-

-my mama-today she would have been 97. Happy birthday in heaven, Mama!

-doing a deep study of John 10:1-16

-so thankful for the one who runs our children's ministry at church!

6-17-2022-

-a big answer to prayer

-working out in the yard together with my guy

-seeing God working all things together for good 

specifically in regards to all of the losses we have gone through in 2021 and 2022

6-18-2022-

-potato salad made the same way mama made it

-a phone call with my oldest sister

-our home

-dinner at my nephew's with friends from church

6-19-2022-

-my husband and my three sons-in-law on this Father's Day

-the beauty of what God is doing in our church

-cards and texts to my guy from his girls

-a nice Father's Day with our oldest and her family and my nephew and his family

still following,