Gratitude

Thanksgiving, a time to reflect, a time to remember, a time to recall, recount, and recharge.


So many things I am thankful for this holiday, my first holiday with my wonderful husband.


I am incredibly grateful for my health, each day brings new healing, renewal, strength, joy, hope, and perspective. I can't take one day of energy for granted. I feel like a new woman with enough energy to outlast even my husband. God is so good. The Lord has provided people in my life to help me get well, it's amazing!


I am grateful for my family and for my new family. We spent T-day with Jacob's parents this year and his mother and I cooked up a storm. I think we even killed her new ovens. What a sweet memory it will always be, and hopes for many more to come. We each prayed at dinner, and she prayed for my Mimi and cried as she prayed. She is close to my grandmother, as everyone that meets Mimi falls in love with her. Overall, it was a success with a Christmas movie to top off the evening. What a blessing it is to have such wonderful inlaws.

This was the first Thanksgiving my family has been apart, my brother in Utah with his wife, and mom and dad at the hospital with Mimi. What a precious thing my mother did for her sweet mom, made her favorite meal and brought her china to MD Anderson for a Thanksgiving meal.


I am grateful for our new family addition, Bailey. He and Lola certainly entertain us and keep us on our toes. It's like sibling rivalry with our dogs. I am so thankful they are here to keep me company as Jacob is traveling.


I am grateful for my country, for the freedoms that I don't even think twice about, but exercise daily. I am thankful that God is in control and that He's calling His children to him in America and countries who don't have religious freedom. I am thankful that for now we still say, "one nation under God."


I am thankful for my husband, for his ability to love me like no one else can. I am thankful that he gets me and cherishes me and every quality of mine. I am thankful for how hard he works and how he provides for us. I am thankful that he sees the woman that I can be and encourages me to love Christ more. I am blessed by his joy, strength, and love.


I am thankful for God's redemption in my life. I am thankful for the cross and salvation, all which I could not obtain on my own. I am thankful for grace that abounds. I am thankful for tender mercies and that He longs for me. I am thankful that he is the great romancer, and speaks to my heart with words that fill me with joy and strength. I am thankful that he loves me deeply and laughs when I laugh, weeps when I weep. He is good, he is faithful, he is worth everything.

New Chapter for Us

Today is the start of a new chapter for us, a chapter I would like to refer to as Learning to Live Alone Again....Four Days A Week! Yes, my husband has started on a project in Pittsburgh and will be traveling every week, leaving on Sunday nights and back on Thursday nights. Pittsburgh=the pits! Pun intended! I knew this day would come with J being a consultant, but I didn't know it would come as our 9mth anniversary present!

In all honesty, it's really hard but we know God has a plan in this season of our lives. This is week 1 and I feel like May is ages away (he will be done in May). I have to admit that this is the first time in my life that I have don't have "what's next" planned and perfected. Our lease is up at the end of December and we aren't fully sure where we will be in this interim. Friends, can I tell you that I am OK with it! Praise Him! I have such a peace and I just know the Lord is with me. My sweet friend, Amy, has been such an inspiration to me as she has been walking this path for the past months while Eric is away for his new job. I love how sisters in Christ can be so real with each other, and open about their pain, struggles, triumphs! She is such an encouragement to me! Thank you my sister!

I refuse to let the enemy convince me that I am alone. I am not, my God is with me! I have nothing to fear because we are in the will of the Most High God! What a safe and beautiful place to be! And of course, I have Lola with me and she is good company and she's a close second to a cuddling with my man.

On a good note, I am feeling SO great! I am just beyond grateful for my health and the great blessings we have found as we have journeyed through the wilderness. I start working out with my trainer again next week and I can't wait! I can't wait to have my strength back again.