Thankful

     As I said yesterday, I have been having a trying couple of weeks.  Things haven't only been hard, but have been awful.  I could, if I would let myself, get down, but I am not going to do that.  What I am going to do instead is count my blessings, which are many.
     I am blessed.  I have a roof over my head.  Tonight, before I wrote this, I had a hot meal.  I have three wonderful kids, two beautiful daughters and a handsome son.  I have a wife that loves me, takes care of me, and is there for me when I need her.  I have been blessed with a great Mother and Father in law, whom I get along well with.  I have a Mother that is still alive, and in reasonably good health, who I get to see every day.  I may not always have what I want, but I always seem to have just what I need.
     I have many friends, and I have family.  Many of my friends I consider family, and many of my family I consider friends.  I have a brand new Bible that I got for Christmas.  It has large print, which makes it a lot easier for me to read as my eyesight diminishes.  I have grown to treasure this new Bible, much as I treasured the ones before it.  I have gray hair, which I used to cover up, thinking that it was a sign of growing old.  I have come to count it as a blessing, a symbol that God has given me years of wisdom after my years of youth.  I have a beard, which has gotten shaggy.  I am thankful for it two fold.  One, it is a symbol of my faith in a prayer that I have had for a while.  Secondly, it keeps my face warm.
     I am thankful for those people who have been with me through all of my years, through good times and bad.  These are people who have seen me at my best, and at my worst, but still love me.  I am thankful each day that I check on my blog, and see that someone has read it, or has "liked" the link that I put on facebook.  I am thankful for each and every person that comes up to me and tells me they read the blog and enjoy it.  That makes it worthwhile.  I am thankful for each and every person that stops and says a prayer for me when I ask it.
     Most of all, I am thankful that God gave His only begotten Son to die on an old rugged cross, so that I might be saved.  Many days I feel as though I, more than others, am not worthy.  There is a song that I sometimes sing at church, and the words go like this.....I'm just a sinner saved by grace, when I stood condemned to death, He took my place, now I live and breathe in freedom, with each breath of life I take, loved and forgiven, back with the living, I'm just a sinner saved by grace.   That is what I am most thankful for.