Happy Thanksgiving!

Normally my blogs are loooong. Oh my gosh! I apologize to you guys who sat through it all. I'm sorry. I guess if I blogged more frequently then I would write shorter stuff at a time!

Thanksgiving is coming up, and as I go back from the last Thanksgiving to this one, I have plenty more to be thankful for. I have one more baby! A precious addition to the family, my "peanut" Caleb. Our family dynamics has just been charged with love.

I'm thankful for my marriage. I can't say that Paul always makes me happy (or vice-versa), because realistically at times I can be very UNhappy. But these past 5 years of marriage or so we still haven't come across anything so devastating that we can't work through. And we're still in love with each other! In fact, I believe our love for each other is more genuine now then it was when we first got married because we truly know each other better - the good, the bad, and the ugly. And we still wouldn't have it any other way.

I'm thankful for the Lord's provision and the careers He has set out for us. I'm specially grateful for the jobs He has provided for our family, and now possibly even for me.

Ridiculously thankful for Anakin and Brielle. They are cute sweetie pies whose ministries are to love on you and brighten your day. Yesterday I found my ID cards and I was praising Jesus out loud because I was really fretting over them, and then Anakin asks me if I found them - which I say yes - so he starts singing: "Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him, how I've proved Him o'er and o'er..." Yeah a hymn! Which I've only heard ONCE. Things like this amaze me.

I'm thankful to live in a free country. And I pray it stays free - all of it, entirely, and completely - even though it costs us to work hard. My home country (Venezuela) isn't free, and it's heartbreaking that a nation so beautiful and rich in natural resources has such impoverished and oppressed people. One day I'll blog about Venezuela. Today I'm thankful I am in America, that we don't have a dictator, and that we are not socialists. That our health care may be pricey but it's excellent and we have options (even though they are expensive ones!). I'm thankful that I can sing "God Bless America" and that I can have Christian bumper stickers on my car. That I can share God's grace and mercy for me to anyone who is interested and carry my Bible with me wherever I go.

Finally, I'm thankful for all that God had done for me before I was formed in my mother's womb. He created the world for us to live in and decorated it with nature - vibrant and invigorating. He gave us the Law to teach us what sin is and create in us a conscience. Then He gave His only Son as a once-and-for-all sacrifice to forgive my sins because He knew I would not be able to keep the Law out of my own discipline. So I was born with everything I needed to have a relationship with God. An intimate, deep, and personal relationship with the Almighty God, who holds my hand and holds my life in His hands simultaneously.

Please share what you are thankful for! A lot of times we say "Happy Thanksgiving" like it's another holiday, but the world needs to know the goodness of our Lord.