Thankful

"I am thankful for my bed, tea, food, water, my car and my job. That is really all I need day to day. I am thankful for friends and acquaintances. I am thankful for animals. I am thankfulfor seasons. And beautiful art and music. I am thankful for birds. I'm thankful for kids. I am thankful for the kids I work with. The kids I work with are each one very special and unique." I found these written on some note paper in my book bag. I tend to keep things written down on paper, if I think there is something valuable in them, so I copied this down before I recycled it. I have gone through periods of time where I wrote down five things I was thankful for every day. But I don't do this consistently for lengthy periods of time. My problem is I get hung up if I feel like something I'm doing as a ritual every day becomes a heavy burden. It becomes like an obligation rather than an exercise--legalistic, in other words. I don't like that. Now, this urge I'm having to go to bed early on school nights is something I want to keep up until school is out for the summer break. Then I will probably go back to staying up late, but until then I'm going to have to try to do that. Life works a lot better at work when I get some sleep at night. I am very thankful for a relatively simple life these days, probably simpler than it's ever been. And yes, I owe it all to Jesus. All the things He asks us to do are for our good, not for our harm. I was thinking about the Lord's prayer today, what we call the Lord's prayer, and you know what I'm talking about. In our day, we all memorized it, maybe not so much today. "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power and the Glory, forever and ever, Amen." Forgive me if I didn't punctuate this correctly, but this is the way I learned it, and maybe you did too. I pray it sometimes, not all the time. I have learned that it is a "pattern," not something to recite like some form of incantation. I am thankful for that prayer, whether word for word or as a pattern. I am very changed by the Lord and I can't change back. It is not possible. I think about that a lot because I have lost a lot of people in my life, in my family, who do not want the Lord, and there is nothing I can do about it except to pray for them and love them. That is the advice of every Christian I know as it applies to about every situation regarding any person in our life. I find it hard to believe how the people in my life who have not been happy with my becoming a Christian, have expressed, in words or in actions, that they liked me better before. Well, that's kind of a shame, but there is nothing I can do about that. So, when God says, we are to rejoice and be thankful, I believe that is because when we do that we can enjoy life. I don't think we can enjoy life without Jesus, because Jesus Christ IS life. Without him, you can enjoy many things, but you are always going to be upset about something, such as politics or the economy or hating somebody, or angry about something. It's so obvious. I was like that before I was a Christian. I didn't really enjoy life. I was living in rebellion against the God that created me and didn't even know it. People just kept saying, "Jesus died for your sins," and I said, "Ho, hum," until finally God started getting my attention in a way that was more than words. Tonight, I have to go because of what I said earlier--I have to get some sleep, for real. So, I just leave you with this: Rejoice and be glad and be thankful, especially if you know Jesus. If you don't, please think about it. It could very well be what's missing in your life. Anyway, I am just thankful tonight, and I hope you are too. Until next time, Carolyn