These words leap to mind this Thanksgiving. Daily in life we have much to be thankful for. I am often annoyed with for how much I take God’s daily blessings for granted. I am surrounded by His blessings and mercies, and yet, often I only notice them when they go missing. And then it is all too easy to make the attitude one of, “how dare you let that be taken from me God” rather than a thankful attitude.
However, this Thanksgiving it is significantly easier to adopt a thankful attitude without having to work at it. In fact the thankfulness just seems to flow out. What I find particularly interesting is that the joy and thankfulness over the girls being home spreads out. It reminds me to be thankful for the “little” things as well.
Wouldn’t it be nice if these sorts of experiences lasted forever? If one didn’t become desensitized to the blessing, in this case of having his daughters at home, and have to continuously remind oneself to be thankful? But that’s not the way it works. Well, I’m still living on the high so who knows, maybe I’m wrong this time, but life has taught me that humans, by nature (myself included) easily forget to be thankful for the blessings their Creator/Savior/Sustainer has showered down upon them.
However, this Thanksgiving it is significantly easier to adopt a thankful attitude without having to work at it. In fact the thankfulness just seems to flow out. What I find particularly interesting is that the joy and thankfulness over the girls being home spreads out. It reminds me to be thankful for the “little” things as well.
Wouldn’t it be nice if these sorts of experiences lasted forever? If one didn’t become desensitized to the blessing, in this case of having his daughters at home, and have to continuously remind oneself to be thankful? But that’s not the way it works. Well, I’m still living on the high so who knows, maybe I’m wrong this time, but life has taught me that humans, by nature (myself included) easily forget to be thankful for the blessings their Creator/Savior/Sustainer has showered down upon them.
We need benchmarks. We need things in our life to remind us of those blessings.
A friend of mine talks about never realizing how great it is to be full until right after being very hungry. He actually likes being ridiculously, extremely hungry because “the food tastes better.” And let’s face it, he’s more appreciative.
I am sure that it is easier to be thankful in the midst of Parker’s long scream/cry/fuss periods because the girls didn’t come home with us, and because we worried we would never get to this point. That said, I really wouldn’t recommend having your children be born 14 weeks early just to teach yourself to be a more thankful person ;)
But as I was saying, we need benchmarks in life. Things we come back to that remind us to be thankful. Things that remind us to “Give thanks to the LORD, He is good; for His steadfast love endures forever.” I think we need to go out of our way to set up these benchmarks. They can be big things or little. I know for me, my wedding ring is a big one. It has always been a conscious reminder to me to remember to be thankful for my wife, to not take her for granted, nor the incredible blessing she is to me. However this experience has added meaning to my ring. Ever since I put it on Emma Jane’s arm
it has become a reminder of where we started, and consequently, how far we have come. How merciful God has been to us during this whole experience.
I could go on and on but I fear I may be getting rambly quick. It has been a looong time since I last slept. This isn’t just because of the girls. We had an impromptu stop at the Emergency room last night. Not for the twins…for Mary Jane! She had a kidney stone. She has gotten them a few times over the years but this one was by far the biggest one she’s ever had, and of course with that fact comes the truth that this was by far the most painful one, and interestingly enough I think it was the quickest as well. Thankfully, she is doing well. Actually, Mary Jane and I were talking about it and we have a lot to be thankful about concerning the kidney stone. The last one she got was right before Mary Jane got pregnant. When they did their tests the doctors discovered she had a bunch just sitting in her kidney hanging out, one day to emerge and create their own particular brand of trouble. We were very concerned this might happen during the pregnancy which could have been very bad, but it didn’t. And while neither of us wanted the ER to be a part of our Thanksgiving we must admit it would be hard to find a better time for this to have happened. Nana and Pop are in town for Thanksgiving (Mary Jane’s mom and stepdad). Nana was able to take Mary Jane to the ER enabling me to be with the girls and make sure they were properly fed and everything that is currently going on with that. Then there was the concern about Church this morning (I was supposed to preach and once again my supervising pastor was out of town so there really wasn’t anyone around to take my place—if you know nothing about my vicarage other than this blog than you probably get the impression my supervising pastor is always out of town. Let me tell you, nothing could be further from the truth. The guy never leaves town. He has tried to leave twice in any type of recent history. Both times things looked fine and secure and both times the Broge family decided to have a medical emergency. Go figure.) but then Mary Jane passed the kidney stone pretty quickly and got home in cheerful spirits just in time for me to get changed and over to the Church.
“Give thanks to the LORD, He is good; for his steadfast love endures forever”
We pray all of you have had a relaxing holiday. Know that all of you are on are list of things we are thankful for. Very high on the list in fact. Your prayers, comments on the blog, e-mails have meant the world to us. We are sorry that we haven’t been able to write back as much as we would like, but know that just jotting that quick e-mail, or writing that quick blog post, or stopping and saying that quick prayer, means the world to us.
Hmm…this got really long.
Well, maybe that makes up for missing a couple of days?
Blessings
The Broges
A friend of mine talks about never realizing how great it is to be full until right after being very hungry. He actually likes being ridiculously, extremely hungry because “the food tastes better.” And let’s face it, he’s more appreciative.
I am sure that it is easier to be thankful in the midst of Parker’s long scream/cry/fuss periods because the girls didn’t come home with us, and because we worried we would never get to this point. That said, I really wouldn’t recommend having your children be born 14 weeks early just to teach yourself to be a more thankful person ;)
But as I was saying, we need benchmarks in life. Things we come back to that remind us to be thankful. Things that remind us to “Give thanks to the LORD, He is good; for His steadfast love endures forever.” I think we need to go out of our way to set up these benchmarks. They can be big things or little. I know for me, my wedding ring is a big one. It has always been a conscious reminder to me to remember to be thankful for my wife, to not take her for granted, nor the incredible blessing she is to me. However this experience has added meaning to my ring. Ever since I put it on Emma Jane’s arm
it has become a reminder of where we started, and consequently, how far we have come. How merciful God has been to us during this whole experience.I could go on and on but I fear I may be getting rambly quick. It has been a looong time since I last slept. This isn’t just because of the girls. We had an impromptu stop at the Emergency room last night. Not for the twins…for Mary Jane! She had a kidney stone. She has gotten them a few times over the years but this one was by far the biggest one she’s ever had, and of course with that fact comes the truth that this was by far the most painful one, and interestingly enough I think it was the quickest as well. Thankfully, she is doing well. Actually, Mary Jane and I were talking about it and we have a lot to be thankful about concerning the kidney stone. The last one she got was right before Mary Jane got pregnant. When they did their tests the doctors discovered she had a bunch just sitting in her kidney hanging out, one day to emerge and create their own particular brand of trouble. We were very concerned this might happen during the pregnancy which could have been very bad, but it didn’t. And while neither of us wanted the ER to be a part of our Thanksgiving we must admit it would be hard to find a better time for this to have happened. Nana and Pop are in town for Thanksgiving (Mary Jane’s mom and stepdad). Nana was able to take Mary Jane to the ER enabling me to be with the girls and make sure they were properly fed and everything that is currently going on with that. Then there was the concern about Church this morning (I was supposed to preach and once again my supervising pastor was out of town so there really wasn’t anyone around to take my place—if you know nothing about my vicarage other than this blog than you probably get the impression my supervising pastor is always out of town. Let me tell you, nothing could be further from the truth. The guy never leaves town. He has tried to leave twice in any type of recent history. Both times things looked fine and secure and both times the Broge family decided to have a medical emergency. Go figure.) but then Mary Jane passed the kidney stone pretty quickly and got home in cheerful spirits just in time for me to get changed and over to the Church.
“Give thanks to the LORD, He is good; for his steadfast love endures forever”
We pray all of you have had a relaxing holiday. Know that all of you are on are list of things we are thankful for. Very high on the list in fact. Your prayers, comments on the blog, e-mails have meant the world to us. We are sorry that we haven’t been able to write back as much as we would like, but know that just jotting that quick e-mail, or writing that quick blog post, or stopping and saying that quick prayer, means the world to us.
Hmm…this got really long.
Well, maybe that makes up for missing a couple of days?
Blessings
The Broges
