Thankful Thursday

I'm having a lovely Christmas break; Tom home for 11 days in a row, a beautiful Christmas Eve service followed by dinner with the family and presents with our grandchildren, late mornings with a second cup of coffee in my jammies, running errands with Tom, resting and reading and cooking and eating and generally relaxing and enjoying myself.  

I wasn't planning on returning to the blog until after the first of the year, but I did want to jump in on the last Thankful Thursday of 2010.  Oh!  I have so much to be thankful for!  In some ways, it was a tough year with Jake's continuing medical problems.  There were times of fear and concern and worry and anxiety but just knowing that God is good and not only has a plan for all this, He has a purpose has given us all hope and comfort.  I am thankful for the hard times because it really causes us to place our trust in God and to rest in Him.

I'm also thankful for a successful year of business.  My last 'job' for 2010 went out the door last night and it felt good to have completed a year of work.  I closed the books on 2010 today and--YIPPEE!!!--I made a profit!  It wasn't much but most businesses finish in the red for the first year, so I am pleased.  I have wedding envelopes arriving on Monday, so I'll have work to do next week and I've got work scheduled into October, so that feels really good!

I'm thankful for our little church.  We're now in the fourth year since starting our church, Christ Covenant Presbyterian, and each week, as I pray during the worship service, I thank God for bringing us together, sustaining us, guiding and directing us.  We are hoping to call an organizing Pastor in the new year, so I am looking forward with excitement and anticipation to see what God has in store for us!

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I've written more of this post TWICE and lost it TWICE and I'm running out of steam to re-write it again, so I will simply close this rambling post by saying what I most wanted to say on this last Thankful Thursday of 2010:

I am so thankful for the love of Christ and the mercy and grace He has shown me by granting me salvation; for sustaining me, for convicting me of sin, for comforting and encouraging me.

Thanks be to God for His indexpressible Gift!

(And after all that, I forgot to publish this post on Thursday. . .)