TODAY I AM THANKFUL FOR:
WORDS!!!
Today, I am especially thankful for the word RAVISH!
ravish — to overwhelm somebody with deep and pleasurable feelings or emotions
RAVISH me, Oh God! Overwhelm me, not with some sort of silly, childish emotions, but with DEEP and PLEASURABLE feelings and emotions that are based on Your TRUTH!
RAVISH me!
“The more we enjoy of God,
the more we are ravished with delight.”
—Thomas Watson
©PortCityPrincess 2009
All Rights Reserved
TODAY I’M THANKFUL FOR:
Today I find that I am still impressed with my 5-year-old little munchkin who ran 2.8 miles in under 30 minutes last week and then managed to run 2.24 miles in 30 minutes yesterday despite the cold, hard wind, and a muddy & bloody fall… She kept on trucking and taught her mommy a lot about perseverance.
Thank you, God, for Lydi-Lou. ♥
Thank you, Sweet Father, for also giving us Balboa! What a BOY! It does my heart good to see him racing along… cold, tired, sore… still pushing… not complaining. Please make me more like Noah (when he’s running!) 
*chuckle*
Hmmmm… Thank you, Spirit, for reminding me that the complaining of my boy mirrors the complaining of his mother and that the sharp answers and harsh tones of both munchkins are reflections of their mommy, too! YIKES! It’s so gross! PLEASE help me to get rid of it! I’m a weak mess! Thank you that you will not show me these things and leave me here! Let’s make WAR and destroy this disgusting SELF!
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
~Philippians 1:6
©PortCityPrincess 2009
All Rights Reserved
TODAY I’M THANKFUL FOR:
We got to watch the Space Shuttle Atlantis launch today! It’s always so much better LIVE! I’m in awe that God lets us do that! We are so absolutely NOTHING! I’m thankful, too, that it was a safe and successful launch. What a dangerous thing, when you really dissect what’s going on! Oh! The DETAILS!!!
THANK YOU, God, for letting us have space shuttles and for letting us live in space for months at a time! Thank you for the knowledge (yes, thank you even for the MATH) that goes along with making all of that possible! Thank you, God, that Jeffery Williams is on the ISS right now! I pray that you will RAVISH him! I pray that the two of you will have an unbelievably special time together and that his crew mates will covet a relationship with you because of what they see in him.
Your majesty is Unsearchable, Oh God!
“How you have helped him who has no power!
How you have saved the arm that has no strength!
How you have counseled him who has no wisdom,
and plentifully declared sound knowledge!
With whose help have you uttered words,
and whose breath has come out from you?
The dead tremble
under the waters and their inhabitants.
Sheol is naked before God,
and Abaddon has no covering.
He stretches out the north over the void
and hangs the earth on nothing.
He binds up the waters in his thick clouds,
and the cloud is not split open under them.
He covers the face of the full moon
and spreads over it his cloud.
He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters
at the boundary between light and darkness.
The pillars of heaven tremble
and are astounded at his rebuke.
By his power he stilled the sea;
by his understanding he shattered Rahab.
By his wind the heavens were made fair;
his hand pierced the fleeing serpent.
Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways,
and how small a whisper do we hear of him!
But the thunder of his power who can understand?”~Job 26
©PortCityPrincess 2009
All Rights Reserved
TODAY I AM THANKFUL FOR:
Well… I’m thankful for LOTS of things today… there are so many wonderful things that God has done and is doing… but at this VERY moment, my thankfulness to God for giving me a fun husband with the most intoxicating neck is most persistent …
I would be so very happy to have my head on his shoulder and my nose buried in his neck FOREVER… So there you have it: Today I am thankful for Charles’ delicious neck! *happy sigh* It’s so safe and comfortable there! ♥
©PortCityPrincess 2009
All Rights Reserved
TODAY I’M THANKFUL FOR:
Jazz, community, beniegts loaded with powdered sugar, dancing and laughing children, tiny (but cozy) living rooms, gumbo, deck time, and good God-picked friends (old and new) to enjoy them with. ♥
©PortCityPrincess 2009
All Rights Reserved
TODAY I’M THANKFUL FOR:
As Charles walks out the door tonight with a heavy heart, to attend a wake for one of his 11-year-old students, my children are happily, cozily, healthily chomping on pizza with not a worry… not a fear.
I am overwhelmed with thankfulness at the mercy of God at letting me be with the M* Munchkins another day. I’m so thankful, too, that that little boy had my husband for his teacher and that God gave Charles many opportunities to share the gospel with him and to be a walking testimony of the power of God to change hearts.
©PortCityPrincess 2009
All Rights Reserved
TODAY I’M THANKFUL FOR: (I know it’s late… but it’s been a long, busy day!!!) I’ve a lot to be thankful for… just today… BUT-
While many of you know I HATE deboning chicken- so much so that my husband RARELY gets the gumbo he loves, poor thing- I am so very THANKFUL for deboning chicken tonight!!! Crazy, huh?!? Wanna know why? Well… deboning 20lbs of chicken tonight gave me HOURS (I’m slow) to think and be thankful! God is so NICE like that! Just a little taste:
First of all, I was deboning chicken because God has given me some AMAZING friends and I want to hang out with them and be cozy with them and revel in God’s greatness with them and listen to jazz music with them… and it’s fall… and gumbo is cozy and festive… Deboning chicken because I have neato God-given friends is FANTASTIC! I’m so thankful I get to debone chicken to show LOVE to them! I’m so thankful for the godly people God is surrounding us with (it is answered prayer).
Then, while I was deboning chicken, Noah came to me (my hands covered in nasty chicken gunk) and softly said, “Mom, I’m having a really hard time knowing God.” I’m so happy I was covered in chicken gunk and that I got to sit and listen to my son pour out his little heart to me… I will happily debone chicken every day if God will give me more of THAT!
After Noah was in bed, we got a phone call… and because my hands were covered in chicken gunk, and I was on a mission, I couldn’t and wouldn’t answer- so Charles did. Someone was a gazillion times nicer to me and more generous to me than I deserve and while Charles relayed the message to me, I wept and snotted (have no fear, nothing got into the chicken!) and desperately needed to have my nose wiped, but my hands were covered in chicken gunk… and my gorgeous hunk of a husband took a Kleenex and lovingly and tenderly wiped my nose… SEVERAL times! *embarrassed chuckle* I’m so happy I was covered in chicken gunk! It spared me an argument and left me weak and let my husband be strong and tender. Bring on more chicken gunk.
More than all of these amazing and precious things, though, I am so very thankful for my God who can make even CHICKEN GUNK a BLESSING to His silly, selfish, tired children.
©PortCityPrincess 2009
All Rights Reserved
A friend of mine suggested we state something we’re thankful for every day of November until Thanksgiving. I like that idea, granted it’s already the middle of November. I think I’m going to try to post something I’m thankful for EVERY day. I won’t make it a law… that would steal every bit of joy from this… but I’d certainly like to give it a go!
For starters, and because my dear mother is so much on my mind:
I’m thankful for adoption- physical & spiritual- I’m thankful that God plucked me out of a rough biological family & put me into the M* family… MY family. I’m thankful He gave me amazing, godly parents who love Him more than anything & have prayed fervently & faithfully that God would redeem & spiritually adopt their children. I’m thankful that God has answered their prayers & that I am a child of the King. ♥
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. ~Ephesians 1:3-14
©PortCityPrincess 2009
All Rights Reserved
Wow.
by Jim Elliff
I watched a portion of a video designed for the purpose of telling Bible stories and presenting the gospel. The entertainer was dressed like an angelic Elvis Presley, complete with wings. The clothes and movements of the entertainer’s body were an overstatement of the real Elvis. My friend touted the act as “soooooo funny.” It was. I mean that he was so funny that I could not help but laugh. What should we think about this approach?
1. First, the combination of the gospel (which is dead serious) and staged humor make strange bedfellows. I am not speaking of occasional situational humor that is often acceptable. And I certainly do not mean that we should never laugh. We appreciate both humor and the gospel, but do they work well together? Is a comedic presentation the appropriate tool for such a weighty subject? One has to ask the question, “What is soooooo funny about the gospel?” In this program, Elvis was said to be “sent from God.” But are angelic majesties “soooooo funny?” Is the truth about the cross “soooooo funny? Are sin, heaven, hell, Christ, salvation, or even the stories of redemptive history “soooooo funny?” What does God think about this? Should I listen to the gospel from a man in a winged Elvis suit?
2. The medium of humor is a poor instrument of conviction. Children, and everybody else for that matter, are brought to the need for repentance through the conviction of the Spirit. Does laughter get me there? Does that which is designed to trivialize, also cause me to agonize?
3. The use of such means may deaden the child’s ability and appetite to receive truth in a more conventional spoken or written form. In other words, entertainment becomes to the listener the preferred medium of receiving his information about God. The undiscerning listener (and that’s what all children are by nature until trained) may soon become unable to receive truth any other way. And this addiction to entertainment as the conveyor of information may last into adulthood.
4. Generally speaking, making truth entertaining means that the nuances and complexities are removed, and only a simple or direct transferable idea is useable. I am saying that most entertainment does not have the ability to give the child anything substantive, but rather only a greatly reduced or simplistic concept.
5. Quite often, God’s name is taken in vain. For instance, to say that God sent an angelic Elvis as I have described above is really to desecrate God’s character and name. Humor about God is almost always an “empty” or “vain” way of speaking about the God of the universe. We wouldn’t be able to put on such a performance in front of God’s throne in heaven.
6. Depending on the level of intensity of the entertainment, the truth may be totally drowned in the humor. In other words, what the child remembers may not be truth about God at all, but the funny situation depicted. At the end of the day, the child may come away from the entertaining religious experience having learned nothing at all.
Copyright © 2002 Jim Elliff. Christian Communicators Worldwide, Inc. Permission granted for not-for-sale reproduction in unedited form including author’s name, title, complete content, copyright and weblink. Other uses require written permission.
