Our Sacrifice of Thanks

"Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God ... " 

(Psalm 50:14a)

"As you bring Me the sacrifice of thanksgiving, regardless of your feelings, My Spirit is able to work more freely within you. This produces more thankfulness and more freedom, until you are overflowing with gratitude." (Jesus Calling)


Thank You, loving Lord, for Your gifts ... constant and continual, everyday ... listed here as I wrote them during this past week ~

314 - the bright sun climbing the sky on the eastern horizon ... a new day, and a sense of peace that with each new day comes all of Your promises, never-changing, always with us.

315 - for opportunity to help Carrie out by taking care of Cruz today, Tuesday (and again on Wednesday!) ... who can resist this sweet boy?

316 - slowing us down and opening our eyes to the simple things ... through the eyes of a child.

317 - refreshment for my spirit today (Wednesday), on this day, 40 days from today through Easter ... use these days to show me more and more of Your heart ... "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!" (From Face to Face - Psalm 8:1)

318 - finishing the reading of One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are ... and being captured in the deepest way as I read the final chapter. Ann's description of the intimacy God has created us for ... intimacy with Him. Thank You Lord for this intimacy, for tasting of it through all that You have carried us through, all the blessings, all the hard things ... all drawing us to Your heart.

319 - for Your Love, calling us to intimacy with You, our Creator ... "God makes love with grace upon grace, every moment a making of His love for us. And He invites the turning over of the hand, the opening and saying the Yes with thanks. Then God lays down all of His fullness into all the emptiness. I am in Him. He is in me. I embrace God in the moment. I give Him thanks and I bless God ... " (One Thousand Gifts)

320 - for six hours with our staff team, for sharing of You in our lives, sharing of plans, for sharing a meal prepared with love.

321 - for joy from You, and joy You give as I write from my heart, sharing this joy.

322 - for email, facebook, blogs ... all ways to connect with those we love.

323 - for putting it on Gary's heart to have an appointment with a recent speaker he heard ... and for finding a great connection with someone who has a strong passion for impacting students involved in gangs and drugs in south Omaha.

324 - Thank You for protecting Brianna from greater harm when she experienced a fall ... please bring complete healing to her sprained ankle.

325 - for the answer to some frustration in learning digital scrapbooking ... a great online tutorial class with 60 lessons, taking me step-by-step in learning Photoshop Elements and digital scrapbooking. I am so grateful ...

326 - for some time with sweet three year-old Ali, keeping company with her at a consignment sale while her mommy shopped. Thank You for bargains at sales ...

327 - Thank You for opportunity to share of Student Venture in a supporting church ... and that we could take my 89 year-old father along (as he and Mom used to go to this church before they moved). Dinner afterwards with two couples, dear friends of Dad's (and also Mom, in heaven). Sweet Vera (84 years old) preparing a meal for us, with a thankful heart, even as she suffers from macular degeneration and cannot even read a recipe without a great effort. Yet, her home and heart overflows with a spirit of thankfulness ...

My father (in the middle) with two dear couple friends of his ...

Lord, may my life be a sacrifice of thanks to You ... 

(One Thousand Gifts #314-327)