Thank You God For Jesus, My Savior

"Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst." (1 Timothy1:13 NIV).

This scripture reminds me who I am: a sinner who is saved by Jesus Christ. I'm so humbled when I remember my true place in life and realize once again, what Jesus Christ did for me. During these last days of the month and my last blog in November, I wanted to be thankful for Jesus, our greatest gift. We will celebrate in December His holy virgin birth, but now I want to focus on His last days here and all that He sacrificed for me.

Because of Jesus in my heart I will not perish in hell, but live eternally with Him in heaven. Because of Jesus in me I have hope. Because of Jesus in my heart I know where I am going when I die. Because of Jesus in me there is more to life than what happens on this earth and heaven will be better than I can imagine.

"Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus," (1 Thessalonians 5:18 NIV).

No matter how much sorrow or pain or difficulty I experience in my life I can look forward to eternity with Jesus Christ, my Savior. This world is not my home; it is not the end if I believe in Christ as my Savior.

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him," (Colossians 3:15-17).

Thank you, God the Father, through Jesus Christ, my Savior.

Thank You, God

"Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples. For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens," (1 Chronicles 16:24-26 NIV).

Thanksgiving isn't complete without a proper "thank you" to God the Almighty. For He alone created all that we are thankful for and every living being that we love. Thank you, God.

Thank you for the blessings of Your creation: the sun, the moon, the Earth, mountains, rivers, streams, the oceans, the lands, and the sky above. The flowers, the trees, bushes and wind breaks, the pampas grass bending in the wind are made by His hand. The birds that fly in every shape and size, color and wing span, are designed by God's hand. Deer, squirrels, raccoons, bear, elk, buffalo, turkey, rabbits, wild pigs and moose run freely through the woods because He created them. The domesticated cows, pigs, chickens, horses, sheep, and the cats and dogs we love, are all by His hand. Thank you, God.

The manufacturing wisdom, the inventions of past and present, the technology that overwhelms us, the cures and vaccines that doctors administer, all come from Him alone - from the minds He created and placed in our brains. The architectural wonders, the skyscrapers, the massive bridges stretched across the waters, all are conceptualized by the minds He formed by His touch. Thank you, God.

The thousands of individual, uniquely formed humans who cover this Earth are made by God's hand. Each soul is valued and created to be the original, distinctive person God made him and her to be. God gave each one purpose and special characteristics so each is different from the next. We are to love each and every one. Thank you, God.

"Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations," (Psalm 100:3-5 NIV).

Thank you, God. Amen.

Giving Thanks

"I thank my God every time I remember you," (Philippians 1:3 NIV).

Thanksgiving Day makes my heart ache for those we miss around the table. And I know your hearts also ache for those you have lost. Their seats are now filled by someone else, perhaps a grandchild, or there is one less chair at the table. My heart breaks for those who are grieving during this season. I remember how difficult it was the first year after my mother died or when my daddy was also gone.

Thanksgiving is about being thankful and one of the most wonderful blessings in life is the people we share our life with...family. Although there is a turkey to put in the oven and a table to set, I want to take time to remember the blessings of family, especially today.

Thanksgiving 2017

I remember the wonderful Thanksgivings we shared around my parents' dining room table. It was massive; though I now forget how many places we could fit around it. We often had the kitchen table and extra tables in the 'front room' to seat the overflow crowd of family. It was always a blessed day of laughter and even a few tears, and oh, so much good food. There was a barnyard full of cars most of the day, and it makes me smile when I think about it. No matter the weather, family members would venture outside after the big meal to wander the farm grounds, check out the barn, visit with the animals or join in a game of football.  It was sad to see it come to an end when family began to leave for home.

No matter how I try, I can't quite recreate the wonder of those Thanksgivings of home. Some of the same recipes are being used but now my family fills the seats at our table. What a blessing it is! I'm so thankful today for the blessing of family, those gone, those far away, those around my table.

May God remind you today of all the family blessings in your life, past and present. May your day be filled with laughter and a few tears. May your day be memorable, one that you cherish for many years to come.

"We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all believers--the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you," (Colossians 1:3-6 NIV).

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Season of Reverence and Awe

I can't go outside without being thankful for God's Creation. Everywhere, God has created beauty and intrigue. I am amazed by the colors and textures, patterns and shapes that make up our Earth. Fall is a beautiful time of year to examine the wonders of God.

First the leaves on the trees become brilliant bouquets of color. Then the trees shed their leaves, creating carpets of reds, yellows, and browns on the lawns below, before becoming bare for winter. The grasses proudly wave their blooms in the wind, bowing as the breezes pass through.

The frost touches plants, leaving them with brown and wilted leaves, as they succumb to the approaching cold. Fields become barren after the harvest is gathered and stored safely away. And the task of preparing the grounds for winter is completed.

Saylorville Lake turns from a hustling recreation area to an empty marina with boats brought to the land and covered in blue protective shells. The lake has returned to a haven for migrating birds and wildlife. The shimmering water surface reflects the sunlight and the colors of the sky, morning and evening.

"Let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe," (Hebrews 12:28 NIV).

There is such an abundance of beauty in nature walks this season. Leaves crunch under your feet or they skate over acorns and walnuts. Squirrels scamper from ground to tree, burying their harvest. Deer gracefully prance across open fields to hide in the wooded protection. The pleasant fall days give way to nippy chills that bite at your nose, warning of winter's approach; or are taken over by the angry north wind that slips under your scarf and chills you to the bone.

Thank you, God, for filling our surroundings with such beauty. We praise You for Your amazing creativity and immense variety in nature and in human beings. Help us have hearts and minds that celebrate individuality and uniqueness in nature and in all things. We praise You with our whole beings. Amen.

Be Thankful in All Things

It is definitely time to give thanks and to be thankful. We should always express our gratitude to God but the Thanksgiving holiday gives us a great opportunity to really pause and consider all our blessings. We have one week to give God our best thanksgiving praise. If we start today we might get a good start by Thanksgiving Day.

Just walk around your house and pay attention to all the things you have. Stuff. Collections. Antiques. Dishes. Trinkets. And what about appliances? Are you thankful for the dishwasher? The super size clothes washer and dryer? The microwave? The freezer and refrigerator combination? Years ago we didn't have our fancy electronic equipment. We had phones that we answered by picking up the receiver, connected by a curly cord. How cool was that? Better than the multi-party phone - where all your neighbors could listen to your conversation and even join in? Now we have phones that take pictures and do a thousand other things. Better than my old flip phone, I guess.

What about our beds? There are beds that cushion you, bend you, lift up your head or your feet, or even warm and cool you. Showers can give you a spa experience in whatever temperature you choose. Furnaces and air conditioners created the perfect, constant climate. Blinds and shades can be regulated to the sunrise and sunset. I can print out what I write or send it miraculously to be read by folks thousands of miles away.

Check out your car. For the first time I have a car with a heated steering wheel. Thank you for the invention catching up with the need! I remember all those cold mornings driving to work and my hands were frozen after holding on to the wheel - even with gloves on. I'm so thankful for warm spots on my steering wheel and heated seats, and just plain heat in our cars! We have defrosters built into our rear windows. Are we lucky, or what?!

This doesn't begin to cover the things inside your home that you can be thankful for; let alone outside (I'll cover that on Monday). But I hope that you won't be able to walk through your house today with out saying thank you for the things you see, touch, use, smell, hear, or feel. It all blesses us so greatly every day though we often take things for granted. Let's not do that today.

"Pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus," (1 Thessalonians 5:17-18 NIV).

Breathe thank you's all day long.

Grace, Grace, God's Grace

Thank you, God, for Your grace.

Freely given, undeserved, unearned, impossibly repaid, perfect, holy, and righteous; thank you, God for Your grace.

I think back over my sinful life and I am overwhelmed by the gift of God's grace. He comes to my soiled life and wraps me in a blanket of white, covering the stains of past mistakes and wrongs, and erasing them with His love. He gives me a new life to live, desiring it to be rich in service to others, filled with kindness, gentleness, compassion and love.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do," (Ephesians 2:8-10 NIV).

There is a plan for me. God prepared it for me, even before I believed. He created me in Jesus by His own workmanship. He made me who I am. To do what He needs me to do; to be who He needs me to be. One step forward in time to share the grace He has given me. So I can be like His Son Jesus, My Father, My Brother, My Savior.

"Grace, grace, God's grace, Grace that will pardon and cleanse within; Grace, grace, God's grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin," ("Marvelous Grace of Our Loving Lord" by Julia H. Johnston, 1911).

What a fortunate people we are to have such a loving God, who wants us to be His so badly that He sent His Son to save us. 

I will sing of His glorious Grace all day.

Who Do You Belong To?

We recently added a shelf on a wall in the basement. I wanted to display some of the old pictures we had resting in boxes in the storage room. The shelf hung empty for a couple of weeks before I attempted to fill it with history. John helped me by searching through the "Stewart" box while I looked through the "Springer"/"Hilsabeck" box. As one would expect, it took time as we discovered old things that reminded us of a memory or surprised us as we didn't remember seeing it before.

I selected pictures of my parents, grandparents and even my great-grandparents and John did the same. The shelf (only partially shown above) reminds us where we came from and who we belonged to. My father was an only child so we found several infant and childhood portraits of him, while John's father, the only son with five sisters had only a few pictures as the youngest child.

"For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son--both alike belong to me...He follows my decrees and faithfully keeps my laws. That man is righteous; he will surely live, declares the Sovereign Lord," (Ezekiel 18:4, 9 NIV).

What a blessing it is to know that God's plan involves all generations. He desires for them all to belong to Him together. We can long to be reunited with those who have gone ahead, and be confident that there will be a reunion of those who believe when they follow us to heaven. It is my deepest prayer that all of my children and grandchildren will get to know their ancestors in heaven. What a day of belonging and rejoicing that will be!

Words of Fire

One of my favorite things about living on a farm was creating a bonfire. After every wind there were sticks and branches to pick up from under all our trees. During our 25 years on the acreage, there were many wind storms. Two were horrific, bringing down trees, so there was plenty of picking up and sawing to go around to everyone in the extended family who came to help us.

Courtesy of the Web

I enjoyed picking up sticks and branches and adding them to a burn pile. Sometimes the piles would wait a long time before we found the right calm day when it wasn't too dry to burn. John calls me a firebug because I love to start fires and watch fires burn. I promise I am not an arsonist. But now that we live in a city with a no-burn ordinance, I'm beginning to crave a bonfire.

What I love most about a fire is the smell of wood smoke and burning leaves. I love walking through a neighborhood and smelling someone's wood fireplace at work. I know for some people with breathing issues the smoke creates a physical problem. That's what was nice about the acreage, we were far enough away from most people that we didn't create a problem.

In the Bible there isn't much good about a fire. Fire often symbolizes hell and destruction. But God also used fire as a symbol of His power, to provide light in darkness, to refine or purify, and to represent what the tongue is capable of.

"Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell," (James 3:5-6 NIV).

The scars of hurtful words can last a lifetime and change relationships, damage a life. Words are able to cut like a knife. The tongue is "a restless evil, full of deadly poison" (James 3:8b NIV). We must use words with caution. I remember Mama telling me, "If you can't say something nice about someone don't say anything at all." I've tried to follow that advice, though I know I've failed miserably at times in my life, and I deeply regret some of the things I allowed my tongue to say.

As we begin a new week of a new month, in even a new hour, I'm going to try to keep my tongue from speaking negative things. But, I know it is only with Jesus that I can use my words for good.

May we all speak good things today and bless others with our spoken and written words and leave the fire for a pile of sticks.

Heart Treasures

Sometimes there is a belonging that represents more than the eye can see. I call that a heart treasure. Even if the possession is lost or broken or destroyed by fire, the heart will still hold the memory of that item, coddled tightly by love.

I had a box of plates that I collected during the first years of our marriage. Most had the name of states we visited. When we lived in State Center, John even built plate racks that went along the ceiling of our basement. We displayed the plates. Then when we moved five years later, I didn't want to hang them up again because it was a lot of work and I guess I'd outgrown them. Finally, 25 years later, when we moved to Ankeny, I decided I didn't need the unopened box of plates gathering dust so they were donated. They weren't heart treasures.

The stained glass window shown at the right is a heart treasure. It holds history and memories (some I haven't even remembered yet). This window was in the old sanctuary of my ancestral family church - the church my great-great-great-great grandfather and grandmother helped establish. It remains the oldest established church in Marshall County Iowa and is still going strong. Praise the Lord!

The window now hangs in the stairwell of our home. It graced the church for nearly one hundred years before a couple of years in storage with us, then we recently got it hung. It is a heart treasure.

I looked at the window nearly every Sunday for about 60 years. It hung over the old organs, and then a grand piano. Before that there was a choir and I'm not sure about before that. It looks prim and proper, holy and heavenly, lovely and everlasting. Fortunately, there were many others from the church who also got windows to keep the memory of Bethel Grove alive in their hearts and their homes, even if they have now moved on.

Jesus, Himself, established one significant heart treasure that would help us always remember Him and that He gave His body and blood for our sins. He established the Lord's Supper so we would remember Him.

"And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you," (Luke 22:19-20 NIV).

What are your heart treasures? Thank God for them and take some time to cherish your memories.