With a grateful heart

Thank You for the sun, which rises and sets and tells of Your glorious faithfulness.


Thank You for warmth:  for fireplaces and fuzzy blankets and hot soup and a heated house.


Thank You for muscles that work together and nerves that communicate smoothly and the feel of running along, propelled by healthy strength.


Thank You for little faces that light up and say, "Mommy!"


Thank You for time with these souls:  minutes and hours and days and years of teaching, correcting, training, enjoying.


Thank You for looking down the row of their faces and seeing them worship with Your people.


Thank You for loving families who taught us what love is and delight our hearts when we're together.


Thank You for bonds of matrimony that hold us together through holidays and seasons and children and new houses, and secure us through fickle human nature and passing trials.


Thank You for waking me up each morning to the one groggy face I want to see, for sleepy morning greetings and cozy hugs, for this man who sees all my faults and loves me despite them.


Thank You for the Bible in English, and those who labored and suffered to make that happen.


Thank You for precious morning time in Your Word, for years of Sunday Bible preaching, for times of ruminating on Your Word with Your people.


Thank You for Your priceless promises:  that You will never let us go; that Your faithfulness will not fail; that You work all things for the good of those who love You.


Thank You for Your glorious, astonishing solution to our self-inflicted problem of sin.  Jesus, thank You for stepping down out of heaven--for suffering humiliation and torture--for loving us to the very end.  Thank you for the brilliant, shining resurrection and for pouring out Your Spirit on our hearts.


Thank You for winning our hearts and giving us life forevermore.