I am most thankful for my savior; then after that, I am thankful to live in a country which has religious freedom, as well as many other basic freedoms Americans have enjoyed over the past 200 + years. The freedom to homeschool my children and to raise them the way we see fit too is near the top of my list.
Thankful for Water
Last Updated on Saturday, 14 November 2009 19:32 Written by Kimberly Saturday, 14 November 2009 18:46
Sometimes, as we get so busy in our day to day lives, we may pause here and there to be thankful for the obvious things:
- God, thank you that I'm over the swine flu.
- God, thank you for that person who stopped to help me change my tire in the rain.
- Lord, thank you for my husband and children.
...you get the picture. Sure sometimes we don't even take the time to thank God for those things do we?
Lately, God has burdened my heart for those who are far less fortunate than me. I think part of it is a gift from God in answer to a simple prayer:
God, I'm sorry for being such a crabby ingrate lately because of these different situations in our life. Help me to be more grateful and notice all that you DO provide for us.
Another part may be due to an ongoing discussion I'm having with a pre-Christian friend who was espousing, among other benefits of atheism, that atheiism has allegedly made him into a more loving and merciful person. Truth be told, he's a much nicer person than he was back when he was a disgruntled nominal Catholic (who didn't in any way practice the faith he claims he left behind). On the one hand, I feel like my Christian faith has made my compassion more focused, more directed. Before I got saved, I was very concerned with many different social causes, but I always felt frustrated because I wasn't doing enough, or making enough of an impact in my mind. My Christian faith allows me to rest in the Lord, and be guided and directed by Him to those He knows need to be helped, and who He knows I have been enabled to help personally.On the other hand, sometimes we focus less on the physical needs of those we are trying to minister to, after all, the eternal destiny of their soul is more important, right? Jesus, and the Apostles, advocated both, particularly James when he said that faith without works is dead, and that true religion is taking care of widows and orphans. I've even been disappointed that sometimes helping others in practical ways is sometimes misconstrued as a "lefty" thing to do.
God wants us to be conduits of His blessing and provision in the lives of others. The Dead Sea is only dead because everything flows into it, but nothing flows out of it, making it rotten and polluted (like Christians who drink in Bible teaching but never impact those around them with what God has done in their heart).
I was recently recounting to someone that, having been led of God to invite a single mom round for Thanksgiving or Christmas (I can't remember anymore) for what was to be "Christmas Chili", as we had no money for anything else...I was blessed to have God provide quite miraculously a Turkey with all of the trimmings from an unexpected source. I don't believe this provision would have happened if we hadn't obeyed God in volunteering to be a conduit of His blessings by encouraging that single mom and her children. And, hey...we had a great time too! :-)
Well, both in God helping me to be more grateful, and as I have been more sensitive to the concept of compassion as it relates to my faith, God pricked my heart the other day as I went to the sink for a cup of water. Our water is so clean and tastes so good. Thank you God, because I know not everyone has clean water. Later that day, I was led to a blog by Totally Desparate Mom called "Your First Gift - Clean Water", about something called the Living Water project.
I feel frustrated because of that same story of my life: rising expenses and stagnant or shrinking income...and yet, I hadn't thanked God until that day for one of the biggest material blessings in my life: clean drinking water.
My heart was pricked even more as I read on there the dangers with having a lack of clean drinking water. The children and I read about this together, and prayed what we could do now, and in the coming year to help those without this modern miracle that we take for granted. So many precious children die each year from diseases related to poor drinking water. I was even more thankful that I've had some recent sales of my Advent ebook, because I was able to make a donation towards this Christian ministry building wells overseas, and my son, who had earned some money helping someone with yardwork recently, also wanted to buy the gift of clean water with some of his money.
Are you having a hard year financially? Are you unable to given into all of the "And I want this for Christmas..." requests from your children? I know how that is...I mean, as a mom we want to show our love to our children by blessing them in whatever way we can, and we hate not being able to provide things that other families seem to give their children. This may help: As a family, look over the information about water around the world, watch some of the videos, and talk about being thankful in the little things. Talk about giving another child some clean water as part of your family Christmas present this year.
Jesus said, "I was thirsty and you came me something to drink". He talked about being blessed for giving a cup of cold water in His name to "the least of these" and that when we do it for them, we are doing it unto Him. Sometimes it's good to get out of our own problems and issues, and be a blessing to someone else, in His name.
Comments (3)
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Kimberly, this year in Oct. the Children of the World International Choir came to our church.... and it was amazing. Their from the organization WorldHelp. They too, talked about WATER.... our church committed to building them a well...
My Alyssa was so touched, changed and has been asking family, friends, neighbors to donate. She made bookmarks and gives them to people. She has collected $72 which isn't that much but she is so excited. She wants to bake some pumpkin bread and take it to our dentist & doctor with the bookmarks to ask them. She prays for them by name... (the children she met) it has made it so much more real to her. Last night our youth minister talked about Lottie Moon and she was talking all about it...
Thank you for all you do!
Much love,
Teena
Good for Alyssa helping out like that. It just really touched me this year. I was asking God to help me be more grateful, and I just was so struck by the things we take for granted.Powered by !JoomlaComment 4.0 beta2
