Thankful Thursday

The Lord and I had words this week. It wasn’t pretty. But sometimes that’s just what we need to open our eyes to the magnitude of His goodness.

I’ve been a real complainer this week. It’s my last week home with Angel before going back to my full-time outside the home job. It’s been 8 glorious weeks home with Angel, getting to know her, showering her with love and praying for a miracle that would allow me to be a stay at home mom.

The miracle didn’t come though. It’s called consequences. Consequences for not managing our finances the past 5 years and now having to work like crazy to get our debt paid off.  We’re off to a good start and this last year has been a huge blessing for us. We’ve made good progress on getting our debt paid off and thanks to the generosity of our family and friends we had to pay only a few thousand for Angel’s adoption as opposed to $13,000.

And so I thought somehow, someway, it would work for me to stay home. These 8 weeks were kind of a test and I’ve finally resigned myself to the fact that I will be going back to work. So instead of cherishing these last few days home I’ve been throwing myself a pity party.

And the Lord decided I needed a timeout. He reminded me of our Angel baby, our miracle adoption. He reminded me that I am a mom. Regardless of whether I work full time or part time outside the home or stay at home I am a mom just the same. He reminded me that my employer is allowing me a flexible schedule so Angel will only have to be in daycare about 24 hours a week. He reminded me that our Pastor’s wife, an amazing Godly woman, offered to take care of Angel. He reminded me that they live only one block from the church, where I work. He reminded me that I have a wonderful husband and daughter and step-daugther and step-son and so many many other blessings that are too numerous to even mention and HELLO! Could you please say thank you???!!!!

I was so ashamed of my ungrateful heart.  But the Lord helped me to see my ways and for that I’m thankful too.  Lord, I’m sorry for being such a baby. I’m sorry for being so ungrateful. Thank you, thank you, thank you. My heart overflows with gratitude of how you’ve blessed my life and I can never say enough thank yous. Even without all the people or stuff in my life I am still blessed beyond measure. Help me to bury my ungrateful heart and always let my life overflow with a heart of thanksgiving.

Check out other thankful hearts at Sting My Heart.