Thankfulness

You would think that being thankful would be an easy thing. But it’s not always. At least not for me. When I was younger I asked “why” a lot. Why me? Why now? Why not? Of course, I was getting answers but being young and going down a path that didn’t lead to God, I of course didn’t hear a thing. I still don’t always get why things aren’t going my way, but if you learn to sit back and be still usually you can see why they aren’t. And in my case, it’s usually because of a decision I made. This is very humbling.

My journey of thankfulness is an ongoing one. Like many of my journey’s, I need to work on it daily. Of course, I’m thankful for the easy things. My husband, children, job, family, health. Those are easy. But what about thanking God for making me heavy? WOW, now why the heck would I thank Him for that? Well, I can say that I truly have thanked Him for it. Why? Because it kept me from doing some things that would have really been bad! Making me self conscious about my body as a teenager kept me on the straight and narrow. No way, someone was going to check that body out! So I am thankful for that (as an adult).

And what about thanking Him for not being able to get pregnant? All those years of heart break as I looked at those negative home pregnancy tests, the crying, the unanswered questions, the fertility treatments……all led to getting 3 babies in under 5 years. This is truly something to be thankful for. Had we had our children in quick succession (naturally), as we thought we were going to, we may not have been open to raising our two middle children.

And what about thanking Him when my husband lost his high paying job? Now this is a tough one. This one really changed our lives. We had become accustomed to a certain way of living. We had some nice things and some fun toys. We could take off and go places at the drop of a hat. But with this lifestyle came some really high bills. And of course when the job went away, the bills stayed. This would lead us to bankruptcy and some very low times for our family. How could I be thankful for this? Because, my husband was gone a lot for that job. He would be gone for days at a time. He missed a lot of things for our little girl. We even have a video of her carving a pumpkin at Halloween around the age of 2. He wasn’t home, so we had to keep this memory for him somehow. But because he lost that job, I have a husband whose home every night, off on weekends and able to help me raise our children. THANKFUL!!

I’m not always thankful though. I still have a lot of moments when I ask all the “Whys” but I’m trying to be better. We still struggle with money, hopefully we won’t always but for now, it’s a struggle. I still struggle with being a good parent, having 4 children isn’t always easy. In fact, it’s really hard most days.

But this is something I’m willing to work on. I have been blessed in too many ways not to. God is amazing and great. And He always knows what’s best. And I’m most thankful for Him.