Monday, November 19, 2012

Thanksgiving 16, 17, 18, 19

I'm doing four thanksgivings today, because I got behind on Friday. My reason for for that will be first.

Thanksgiving # 16: School

In 2010, I went back to school after a 28 year hiatus. I knew it would be hard, and it is. For the most part, I'm enjoying all of it, and last spring, I managed to get on the Dean's List - by a tiny fraction of a point. Whew. But it adds an extra layer of pressure trying to stay on it. Last week, I had my first "debate" - there were 13 of us on our team, and when no one volunteered, I became the leader, which meant I had to coordinate the written posts and research of all 13 team members. Last week, I also had to respond, twice, to the other team's debate - which also required research. Last week, I had a Greek word study paper, and a Greek final exam. So I'm thankful today that I lived through all of that to share it with you.


Thanksgiving # 17: Books

Oh.my.goodness. You would think that, of course, a publisher would be thankful for books, but it goes so much deeper than that. With all my school work and all my publishing duties, I had books stacked all around me last week - Bibles, commentaries, textbooks, dictionaries, lexicons, and more. And I realized how much my personal library had grown since school started, and I'm grateful. I actually told one of my classmates I looked forward to a time of being out of school so I could read some of my textbooks for fun. I wasn't kidding!

And I'm thankful for our newest book that just released this weekend! Prophecies Fulfilled in the Birth of Jesus by Dianne E. Butts is  now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and still on sale in our GOGO promotion!

Thanksgiving # 18: God, Who Provides

This morning, I learned that someone I know - a relative of a loved one, so I consider her family, too - became homeless TODAY. She is a young single mom of two little ones, and although life has been hard on her, she has worked steadily and just recently passed a nursing exam and taken on a new job. She made a mistake by trusting someone who promised her and her children a safe place to live - only to learn she'd been lied to. She didn't know how bad until she tried to fix things, only to learn they were beyond her means to fix. Thankfully, our mutual loved one is able to take them into their home for a few weeks, but what an uphill climb this young lady has. I'm thankful God knows her needs, He sees the situation. And I'm praying some special blessings her way in the coming weeks. Will you please join me?

Thanksgiving # 19: Dreams

I'm thankful for dreams today. Not necessarily dreams that I have in the middle of the night (which happened to be a nightmare that caused me to wake up crying!) but the dreams that fuel us toward goals. I posted this on Facebook this morning:

"Have you ever dreamed a dream so BIG that you knew only God could make it come to pass? A dream so far-fetched and yet so practical you wished you'd thought of it yourself, but knew your faith wasn't big enough to dream that big? A dream that would help others in such a mighty and beautiful way? Tim and I discussed a dream like that this weekend, and tossed about all the "what ifs." We discovered we were on the same page, even though neither of us had verbalized these ideas before. So now the praying begins. Would you please join us - praying that God will make this dream a reality? To God be the Glory, great things He has done!!"

I'm thankful for these kinds of dreams!

Do you have any God-sized dreams you can share with us? 

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