Happy Thanksgiving from Our Home to Yours

The house was “quiet” this year as all the bigs were other places and that left only the bottom nine at home!  We just couldn’t imagine it without these rowdy kids!  It has been such a wonderful day!

A few weeks ago Dw said that he would make the turkey this year (first time!)…he even read up on it.  Of course saying he would cook it might have had something to do with my mentioning that I had cooked for basically 40 years and I was thinking hot dogs on the grill sounded perfect for this year….but then again maybe he just came up with the idea all on his own…haha!

It was delicious!  He did a great job.  Who knew?  So I guess he better be careful I could get used to this!  At first he thought he would smoke it but then decided he would miss the smell throughout the house, so he opted for making it in the oven.  I didn’t care how he did it – it was such a thrill that he was gonna’ do it!  It was delicious – which if he had been thinking ahead he would have burned it or something so we wouldn’t let him do it again.  However, it was so good, we’ll let him do it again and again and again and….I may have even said a few minutes ago that the next 40 years is on him…

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Thanksgiving wouldn’t be complete without our family football game at the city park…the teams tied!

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Music all day long….IMG_5110

Life with our two littlest girlies just makes us laugh off and on all day.  We would have missed so much without them!IMG_5157

We have enjoyed such a leisurely day filled with all the things we are thankful for!  Talking, singing and laughter.  Always laughter.

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No surprise Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday each year.  It’s so much slower and reflects my heart so well.

In fact the other day as I was worshipping I was overcome with all the Lord has done for me.  It is difficult to explain without really going into details (I’ll save it for another book someday – ha!) but suffice it to say that when my life lowest point the Lord reached down and rescued me.  Even when I didn’t see any way out and heartache was gripping my soul He met me right where I was.  He never failed me – not even once – nor even for one second. He was there the entire time and He parted the murky waters for me.

This particular season was probably the darkest time in my life and in the midst of the darkness God reached down and lifted me out.  Someday I will share more but I know there are some of you who are experiencing great pain and I invite you to reach out and ask God to help you.  Our God hears, He moves and He rescues.  He rescued me when I saw no hope.

So as joyous as Thanksgiving is for me this year I am also very aware that many have had great loss this past year and truly my heart grieves with you.  I have prayed for each of you as the Lord has brought you to mind.  Aware that Thanksgiving and Christmas are especially painful I ask that God wraps His loving arms around you and you feel His peace in the midst of your very painful journey.   He has always been astoundingly painful even when times of heartache have overwhelmed my soul.

In an effort to always remember the things we have to be thankful for, we went around the room today over and over and over until the list slowed down sharing the things that God has blessed us with in the last year(ish).

Here’s part of the list in no particular order:

Emma, Josh and Teddy were able to come for a visit this year (which brought many of the others!), we are all healthy, our home feels like home, how hard Dw has worked on repairing our home, flag football, our homeschool co-op, the gift of sight, that our family has lots of fun together, a new freezer given to us by friends that is filled (literally) with meat from one of them, John and Birdie being home and feel like they’ve been here forever, our pool, Isaiah teaching himself piano, our 40th anniversary getaway, the gift of hearing, Graham, Savannah and Winston live in “the hood”, Ruby’s latest accomplishment (details soon), Christmas, lots of siblings, a mom and dad, our summer trip, and the list goes on…

What are you thanking God for this year?  He has been so very good to each of us.  Remember how!

PS Yes we have our tree up!! It smells soooo good!  This year we just had to.  Not sure why.  We just had to.

 

2 thoughts on “Happy Thanksgiving from Our Home to Yours

    1. I just posted an update (I’m slow!). It turns out that after all the testing they were unable to determine what was causing her to lose her vision. But in the eight weeks she was home it improved and she was cleared to go home. She will have regular tests to keep an eye on it. Thank you so much for praying. Seriously, thank you.

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