Thankful Thursday~Patterns of Mercy and Trumpets of Praise

In just over a week's time, I attended a wedding and then a funeral. The contrast was sobering, and yet beautiful, too, for God was glorified in both the new lives joined together and in the honoring of a saint who had run her race well. And as I move through days that are rich in the wonder and laughter of children, my sister cares for her husband in the quietness and heaviness of a home that smells of death.

As I watch little bodies grow and get stronger, she watches her strong husband, her protector and provider, get weaker. As I contemplate not growing weary in faithfully training up our children for His glory, she begs for grace to get through a day without falling apart.

A haunting awareness of the difference in our days clings to me, and I often swallow hard and pray for supernatural strength for my sister. For me, I ask for the grace to live fully present in each moment He's set before me, to be grateful for "normal" and "ordinary."

And in the midst of all of this, God is great, and God is good. 

I'm thankful to the Lord for a pastor who faithfully reminds us of the Gospel every single week.

I'm thankful for the fine job Emma did in sewing her first drawstring bag. I'm thankful for little children who delight in play dough, who think it's one of God's greatest creations.  I'm thankful for the good works that God works in us, that He might be glorified.

I'm thankful for colorful flowers that brighten up desert landscapes, and for children who squeal with excitement when they get to water Vincas and Petunias. I'm thankful for a yard full of puddles and mud because that means God has given us RAIN! I'm thankful for breathtaking sunsets that leave me in awe of the Lord.

I'm thankful for big sisters who love babies and for babies who giggle at the silliest of things. I'm thankful for healthy children.

I'm thankful for conversations with my sister and for the ways this affliction has deepened her walk with the Lord.

I'm thankful for difficult relationships that push us to examine our hearts and remember all that Christ has done for us, to die to self and be clothed with compassion and humility. I'm thankful for friends who patiently love me when I'm hard to love.

I'm thankful for difficult people who push us to know what we believe and why and be bold enough to say so. I'm thankful that conflict teaches us how little we fear God and how much we fear man. I'm thankful God's grace is sufficient for it all.

"Fall upon your knees, break forth into a thankful triumph of praise; let your hearts be ten-stringed instruments, to sound forth the memorial of God's mercy. None so deep in debt to free grace as you, and none should be so high mounted upon the pinnacle of thanksgiving. Say as the sweet singer; 'I will extol thee, my God, O King; every day will I bless thee, and I will praise thy name for ever' (Psalm 145:1,2). Those who are patterns of mercy should be trumpets of praise."
~Thomas Watson, All Things for Good

With love,
Trisha