Hello to all and Merry Christmas!

I was thinking lately of the things that I'm grateful for, I always have to remind myself of that when it comes to this season! I know that God knows your heart when you tell Him that you love Him, and that you are truly grateful for the things that He has given you, I feel that I can't thank Him enough for the money, for the presents, or the food, or the money to pay for the lights on the tree. I know that He has a reason for blessing me like He has, I don't deserve this AT ALL! The older that I have gotten the more and more I see the ways that I'm blessed, you know, when your young, everything is there because your parents give it to you and you think that everyone is just as blessed as you are, but the thing is, it ultimately comes from God Himself. I think, "would I really be as satisfied if I had way less, if I had no money for new clothes, if my family was never able to go out to Taco-Bell"...and I can't say that I would or that I wouldn't. That's where it scares me to think, "am I really grateful?" and I pray to God that I am, but am I really, I mean REALLY!

~A couple of years ago, me and my family were at White Water. There was a boy there that was seriously deformed, and that has always given me watery eyes to see. I had never seen anything like that in my life, it made me want to start hysterically crying and going nuts because I was so much more well off. I remember going to my dad and saying, "What do I do, I cant ever come back, that's just awful". Now that makes me sound like a mean kid that didn't care for people, but I had a really bad feeling about it. That night, I laid in my bed sobbing at what I had seen that day, I remember calling for mom and dad from my room...my parents took me upstairs and told me, "maybe God wants you to pray for that young man also maybe God wants to remind you to be grateful for your own physical condition." I will never forget that day when I saw that boy, every time I think of being grateful, that always comes to my mind, I feel like that was a MAJOR mountain point in my life because that's where God really taught me the lesson of being thankful.

~Sometimes God uses big things in your life to help you along and sometimes He uses small.