Thanksgiving & Praise ~

Lately God has been using His Word, prayer and my awesome older friends (who possess a depth of wisdom, surrender, compassion and peace that I can only pray will someday be manifest in me) to teach me a little about thanksgiving and praise.

As Christians, if we truly believe all we say we believe, then there shouldn't be any room in our lives for grumbling, complaining, unforgiveness or resentment. Our minds are the weapons the enemy uses most effectively against us and those we love. To be quite honest, in my case, most of the time he doesn't have to work very hard.

The only thing that overcomes negativity is a spirit of thanksgiving and praise.

Everything I have is a gift from God. This includes the breath I breathe each day, the thoughts I ponder, the words I speak. As I do with my money, I need to be frugal with my thoughts and words, steadfastly guarding what I allow into my mind and to come out my mouth. I need to wisely spend my thoughts and words on things that are honorable, right, pure, lovely and of good repute (Philippians 4:8).

This week I am thankful that my daughters have a father who invests in their futures. It is because of him and his example that they will hold out for God's best when it comes to choosing their husbands. And it is because of his sacrafice of time that they will not look for the wrong kind of attention in the wrong places.

Yesterday afternoon, my hubby and our three girls (10, 9, 8) left for their first daddy/daughter camping trip. The plan was to spend the night at Arcadia lake, do a little swimming and fishing and be home today by lunchtime.

My hubby planned the whole trip, including meals. He gave me a list of the things he wanted me to take care of (which wasn't much) and he handled the rest. I'm glad he let me take care of a few extra things, otherwise they wouldn't have taken bandaids, tylenol, allergy medication or tums (which they ended up needing).

BUT he did remember the s'mores. And being the dad he is, and always able to get on the kid's level, he changed things up a bit and bought Reese's instead of Hersheys. The girls LOVED it! And he didn't call them down when they were catching their marshmallows on fire and laughing so hard they were disturbing the other camps. Not like I probably would have.
They returned today, right on time (that's another thing about my hubby...he's P-U-N-C-T-U-A-L) having caught two catfish and two bass. Of course it's a good thing that hubby is a fisherman for sport only and the slimy guys were released back into nature instead of into my kitchen.

The girls were glowing!

Thank you Father!!