I just came from Thanksgiving Eve service and I have much to be thankful for this year.

First and for most I am thankful one of my kids decided to come with me to the service.

I am thankful for another who I saw there looking so well. Last year I was visiting her in the hospital this year she was at the service with friends of her own free will.

I am thankful for the church family that I have and the many offers to join people for dinner tomorrow.

I am thankful for the family I will be having dinner with tomorrow and all they love they have shown me over the years that I have known them. They have accepted me into their family and love me warts and all.

I am thankful for my friends who have given me support and love good times and bad. I am thankful for the knowledge that I always have their prayer support in my life and in my ministry.

I am thankful for my salvation and the gift that Christ gave me.

I am thankful for one friend in particular who has been a rock for me through some rather rough times. Who has listen and prayed and supported as best he could. I am thankful he has allowed God to use him as a tool in my life to help me to learn to love and to trust. Thankful that big or small we can talk out any problem and keep talking it out till it is resolved.

I am thankful that I am not afraid all the time any more and that I do not live my life as a victim.

I am thankful for the "God appointments" that he arranged for me.

Thankful for my family wacky as they may be I know they love me in their own way. Thankful that I am learning to accept them for who they are.

Last but not least I am thankful for my students, for their love, their trust and the things they teach me everyday.

I am thankful to be here to write this. I have been given so many wonderful gifts and while I don't deserve Gods love he gives it to me anyway. I sit here reading what I wrote and I am amazed at how much he has given to me. I am thankful for all of the hard things I have been through, those are the things that God has used to shape me into the women I am, and they will continue to shape me into the women I will become.

There are so many out there who do not see or realize how much God loves them. They suffer alone the grieve alone they try so hard to do it all alone, never realizing that they don't have to. That if we give our burdens over to God; if we trust him to heal the hurts; if we let him he will handle it all. He will heal it all, there isn't anything too big for God to handle. I am thankful that he has shown this to me and I pray for all of those out there who don't know him, or who just have not learned how big and strong God is. He uses all those hurts to mold and meld us into who he wants us to be, to make us more like Christ. He will pick us up when we fall. It may seem like a good idea to avoid hurt at all cost, but I would not trade my hurts for anything. I am thankful for them.