Let us be Thankful Boys and Girls

We took my dad to lunch today for his birthday and my nephew came home to spend the night with us.  As I've been cleaning the kitchen to get ready to make it messy tomorrow and folding laundry and making up the guest bed for Josh, I've had the song "Let us be Thankful Boys and Girls" by Billy Crockett running through my head.  I could only find a cheesy YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pH2f7GXhOw with the melody, but here are the lyrics:

Let us be thankful boys and girls
for eyes and ears and toes
and puppies with wet noses
 
Let us be thankful boys and girls
for lessons we have learned
and love we have not earned
We follow the bear of amazing grace
Oh, let us be thankful boys and girls.
 
Let us be thankful boys and girls
for kisses on the mouth
and teenage heartbeats pounding
 
Let us be thankful boys and girls
for lightning in the sky
and laughter in the eye
We follow the beat of amazing grace
Oh, let us be thankful boys and girls.
 
For all that brought us here
And all that will see us through
The passageways of life
that lead to You,
Lead us to You.
 
Let us be thankful boys and girls
for a little common sense
and painted picket fences
 
Let us be thankful boys and girls
when packing up the plans
in rented moving vans
we follow the beat of amazing grace
Oh, let us be thankful boys and girls.
 
Let us be thankful boys and girls
for Mendelssohn and Brahms
and shadows growing longer
 
Let us be thankful boys and girls
for years that slowly go
and grandkids we can hold
for memories to keep
and sorrow running deep
We follow the beat of amazing grace
Oh, let us be thankful boys and girls
 
For all that brought us here
And all that will see us through
The passageways of life
that lead to You,
Lead us to You.

Let us be thankful boys and girls
when hope is not enough
that death can't bury love
 
Let us be thankful boys and girls
for wine and bread and hymns
remembering again
we follow the beat of amazing grace
Oh, let us be thankful boys and girls. 

Praying you have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, too.

Peaceful Overwhelmedness

I'm up early this morning. You could say it's because my husband wasn't As quiet as he thought he was before he left for work. You could say it was because I went to bed early last night and my body doesn't know what to do with more than 6 hours of sleep anymore. But I choose to believe that God woke me up this morning for a purpose.

It's been a crazy few weeks. Twenty two days ago I wrote my last post about a God-sized task. Five short days ago, I was wallowing in fear again, questioning whether He was going to provide.

But this morning, the first thing I saw when I looked at my phone was a post by my sweet friend that said "Lovepacs-Frisco has packed all 287 boxes feeding 472 kids this Thanksgiving!!"  Yep, you read that right--almost 300 boxes packed in 2 weeks.

So I'm choosing to believe that God woke me up in the darkness of the early morning to remind me of His faithfulness. HE loves these kids more than You or I can even fathom. He loves me too. Just as much. And His way of showing love to me isn't by providing me a box of food through strangers, but by showing me how HE will provide and I just need to trust Him.

To let go of my pre-conceived ideas of how things should look.

But not stop ASKing Him to do big things.

To believe that He will answer.

So the fact that all boxes are packed and waiting to be loaded into cars tonight shouldn't surprise me. And truthfully, at this stage, it doesn't. But I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say I had some angst along   the way to get to this point.

But for now, I am peacefully overwhelmed by His goodness, grace and mercy.

And for me, that's what Thanksgiving is all about.