Happy Thanksgiving!

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. ~Ephesians 1:3~

Every spiritual blessing. And never deserved or earned by us. Wow!

So very thankful....

For a creative God who gave humans the ability to appreciate the beauty of what He has made. From the intricacy of snowflakes to the vastness of the starry universe, the Lord is glorified by the display of the immenseness of His creativity. I am thankful that He has given me eyes and enabled me to take delight in viewing the works of His hands. The splendor of creation exists for His glory alone, yet He still allows me to derive joy from being in it.

"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" Psalm 8:3-9

Thankful...

...For a loving church committed to teaching Biblical truth
...For leadership committed to living truth as an example to those under their authority.
...For the unique peak that I am blessed to receive into the loving and laboring hearts of my Elders.
...For the love that I have received from individuals within the body.
...For the opportunity and ability to serve the church.
...For the accountability and encouragement that the body of Christ provides.
...For the Lord's faithful provision for our needs as a church and for making that provision very visible to us.
...For the way the Lord has used trials to sanctify individuals and use them as a testimony of his goodness.
...For the amazing grace of our Lord who chooses to use sinners to accomplish His purposes, thereby bringing glory to Himself alone.
...For the ability to go boldly into the throne room of grace to petition for our needs and requests and to know full well that the Lord will glorify Himself within His church.

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. ~Ephesians 2:19-21

P.S. Just wanted to comment on the odd phenomenon that the best way to begin to feel thankful when you don't feel thankful naturally is to start giving thanks. I tend to forget and instead put off blog posts on thankfulness because I am aware that I don't have a grateful attitude. When I just obey the command to give thanks by, you know, giving thanks, then I soon find my feelings have followed. Funny how that works.

Lotsa writing goin' on

I am spending a great deal of this week preparing for an English composition test with essay. Never having had to do a timed essay before (yes, homeschooled, nope, mom never put a time limit on my writing assignments), I am discovering for the first time just how slowly I write. Fun, Fun, Fun. It isn't the kind of writing that makes for interesting blog posts either. My biggest frustration is being forced to fake knowledge and an informed opinion. No time to research. Here is topic, 45 minutes, go! Thankfully, I am pretty good at faking opinions, the knowledge...not so good. This is one of those skills that gets better with practice though, so I think I should survive.

In other news...Anyone notice it is under two and a half weeks until Thanksgiving? La! Happiness. Some of my bloggity friends are celebrating by posting daily (or almost daily) with something they are thankful for. I'd love to be a copy cat and join, but I am only going to do so if I am allowed to start out saying it definitely won't be a daily post. Not out of lack of gratefulness but rather out of lack of time to type out gratefulness and lack of desire to do so after spending a large amount typing in preparation for an English test. I will try for a couple time a week though, we shall see.

So to start out, I am very thankful for the ability to be studying for a degree in English. I am thankful for the Lord's provision in all the details of this process. I am thankful for the way my parents have been so good about putting up with the phrase "Can't, studying". I am thankful for the friend who is working on his degree as well and is willing to loan his books, further lowering my costs. I am thankful for the sweet sister who surprised me by cleaning my room last week because that job had fallen through the cracks in the midst of my other "stuff". I am thankful for the job that provides me with time to study and helps me to pay for it as well. I am thankful for the ability to utilize distance learning. I am thankful that, Lord willing, I should be able to graduate before Summer. And I am especially thankful that I can be certain that God will use this degree to His glory, even if I am not exactly sure of the "how" of that just yet.

Thankful...

Once Upon a Time...
There lived two sisters.

(Anna and Me at Grandma's house, 1994ish)

They were each others very first best friends. As the years passed, they remained each other's best girlfriends.

(Pajama Picture, Christmas Eve, 2005)

Mutual confidants and comforters...

(Spring 2007)

Sharers of countless memories and inside jokes.

(At the Resolved conference, Summer 2009)

Complete opposites in so many ways...
(Anna in camo, me is camping clothes. Fall 2007)


And yet kindred spirits.

(Coordinating Sweatshirts! Winter 2009)

"Some things were meant to be..."

(California, Oct. 2009)

Dear Anna, I am so very thankful that the Lord made us sisters, literally and spiritually. You are an enormous blessing to me and I treasure your friendship. Love ya lots!

I can hear it calling

Just in case you need suggestions for how to pass a Sunday afternoon, listening to your sister practice piano is a delightful option.

In addition to being the center of academic learning, our family's homeschool room is the location for Daddy's 100-ish year old upright piano. It has been part of my life since I was about four years old and each of my siblings and myself has spent time sitting on the bench plunking out keys for our own amusement while Daddy plays his repertoire of hymns and praise choruses. He didn't play very often because of a very busy schedule, but we all recognized the sound of the heavy lid rolling back into the piano as the cue to come dance around the living room and sing. Such is life with little girls.

Of the eight of us children, five have taken at least a year of piano lessons. Anna and Emma are the only ones who are currently sticking with that instrument, the rest of us are hoping to develop talent in other musical areas. Between two people who take lessons, the others who occasionally like to pretend they know how to play, and Daddy, Anna, and myself preparing for church worship music, the piano bench has been kept very warm over the last few years. It is still fun when Daddy plays, but Anna is our primary accompanist and resident soloist. She is the one of our family who is the most gifted when it comes to her particular instrument.

When Anna touches those keys, something wonderful happens. The rest of us sit down and read notes and a melody and that is all we play. Anna turns the notes into a living, breathing entity. Her fingers infuse the melody with emotion and make it into something memorable.

This afternoon, I was thumbing through one of her piano books and found an arrangement called "Longing" that came at out of George Winston's "Autumn" album. I hadn't heard the piece, but seeing as it fit our current time of the year, I asked if she'd try it. She wasn't familiar with it either, but still sight-read it beautifully. Wistfulness and poignancy began wafting through the air and I was again left wondering how music is capable of expressing and provoking emotion. What is it about mere notes and sounds that makes me so intoxicatingly happy in the present moment and yet makes me yearn for something else, something more?

C.S. Lewis accurately describes the emotion through the character of Psyche in "Till We Have Faces": "It was when I was happiest that I longed most. .. And because it was so beautiful, it set me longing, always longing. Somewhere else there must be more of it. Everything seemed to be saying, Psyche, come! But I couldn't (not yet) come and I didn't know where I was to come to. It almost hurt me. I felt like a bird in a cage when the other birds of its kind are flying home."

Is it the longing for heaven? For home? For the beauty there that makes this world seem like a scanty reflection? For the joy that will be beyond anything I can know here? A reminder that I have not yet attained it? Is it the smallest taste of what is to come?

"For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." Romans 8:22-25

Psalm 33

Shout for joy in the Lord,

O you righteous! Praise befits the upright.

Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre;

make melody to Him

with the harp of ten strings!

Sing to Him a new song;

play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
For the word of the Lord is upright, and

all His work is done in faithfulness.

He loves righteousness and justice;

the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,

and by the breath of His mouth all their host.

He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap;

He puts the deeps in storehouses.
Let all the earth fear the Lord;

let all the inhabitants of the world

stand in awe of Him!

For he spoke, and it came to be;

He commanded, and it stood firm.
The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;

He frustrates the plans of the peoples.

The counsel of the Lord stands forever,

the plans of His heart to all generations.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,

the people whom He has chosen as His heritage!
The Lord looks down from heaven;

He sees all the children of man;

from where He sits enthroned

He looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth,

He who fashions the hearts of them all

and observes all their deeds.

The king is not saved by his great army;

a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.

The war horse is a false hope for salvation,

and by its great might it cannot rescue.
Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,

on those who hope in His steadfast love,

that He may deliver their soul from death

and keep them alive in famine.
Our soul waits for the Lord;

He is our help and our shield.

For our heart is glad in Him,

because we trust in his holy name.

Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us,

even as we hope in you.