Being Thankful...my ramblings

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Yan and I slept in, then went to our friend's house (Thank you Jill-everything was wonderful) to join her family for a yummy Thanksgiving dinner. Jill just recently brought her beautiful daughter, Mallory home from China and it was their first Thanksgiving together. After dinner we passed around a jar, each time we received the jar (5 times), we dropped in one dried corn kernal (like the Pilgrims did to remind them of when they had virtually nothing to eat) and told another thing we were thankful for. It was a great way to reflect on so many blessings.

Really, we are SO blessed, I mean I could have come up with lists and lists of things that I'm thankful for. We live in a free country, with the ability to worship and live life as we choose. I try to sit and grasp what I have...and I don't think I truely can. There are so many things that I've grown accustomed to, yet deep down I do not want to take them for granted.

Then tonight, I read my friend Amber's blog and then wonderful Angie's blog and was challenged to sit and thank God for something that I didn't really want to be thankful for. There are several things that immediately popped into my head. One was actually mentioned at the Thanksgiving table today...being thankful when other adoptions did not work out because God knew that Yan was my daughter. Tonight as I thought about other things...hurts, wounds, trials, deaths, relationships lost...stuff that really I don't like...there's nothing fun about it, it sucks, it hurts...but it all falls under the same category "Things that God allowed, that I do not understand, but I must trust that He will use for my good". I'm so short-sighted, I don't see the big picture...but I must trust. I choose to trust that God will use it and work it out for my good.

I'm writing this for me tonight...just to remind myself...God is in control, and for that, I will be forever thankful!

Jenn