Tears and Joy for Thanksgiving

My first Thanksgiving without my husband. Wow--so many memories flood my thinking as I prepared this meal for family and friends. In keeping with the day, I want to share the many things I have to be thankful for today.

• Being married to a Christian man for over 50 years who loved his God, me and our family dearly.
• Progressing through the year with lots of tears but also lots of successes.
• Sharing my testimony 8 times this year at a variety of churches.
• Finishing the first draft of my book--now comes the editing!
• Having family local to come to our meal today.
• Having 4 wonderful international students from OU to join us and share their culture.
• Also having the precious 11-month old twins, Alaric and Tyler, their mother and great grandmother join us.
• One of our Iranian students becoming a Christian! Yeah!
• The smells of the turkey and dressing cooking.
• Getting some wonderful garden therapy this morning.
• The wonderful smells of the frozen herbs in my garden.
• The magic of a compost bin to take the dead plants and turn them into rich soil.
• Remembering taking Jerry last year to Tim and Lynn's for the meal.
• Remembering all the wonderful hugs and kisses I got from my sweetie.
• Having David stop by for awhile this afternoon (this is his dad's year to have him).
• Making my cornbread stuffing from my mother's Watkins cookbook she received in 1937 as a wedding gift.
• A comfortable house to host the meal.
• Beautiful weather today--63 degrees. We had the doors open this afternoon.
• God protecting me throughout my first 11 months as a widow.
• A good group of widows and widowers at church for support.
• Blessings beyond counting living in this free country.
• Freedom to worship as I want.

Psalm 95:2 - "Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song." We need to every day come to God with thanksgiving but especially today. I have be thankful in the midst of my sorrow because Jerry is at home, and I am safe and doing OK. Grieving is a healing process. Even though it hurts, it needs to. If I didn't feel pain in my grief, our love was not real. Grieving is the cost of love! I hope your day was blessed.