Giving Thanks as Fighting Sin

My dear friend Darcy and I were talking about lessons in gratitude. She shared her gladness for “gratitude as a way of fighting sin.” Yes, deal swiftly with my frustrated, self-absorbed heart. I know when I’m giving thanks that I’ve been blessed by a Giver beyond me. Now to just leave my eyes and heart focused right there... on Him, His goodness.

Gratitude really is sweet curing medicine for my sinsick heart and it's side effects are pretty stellar too: leaves me with some needed humility and a good bit more happiness.

And for this morning’s sin that I could dwell on as if it was a virtue worth repeating, oh to indulge in a rich dose of promise instead:

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Romans 7: 24- 25 a

Thanks be to God for...

~ no pole, no place on the globe where the east meets west

~ summer bright cheery sunlight and long naps from the heat

~ air conditioning

~ date nights at home after the party crew’s bedtime

~ friends coming across town for dinner at our place

~ roses just planted in our apartment courtyard, down from our kitchen window

~ preschool teachers that love on our kids in the morning

~ an afternoon out- my man's birthday gift to me of a short time alone

~ beauty (I overheard how evolution gives no explanation for beauty, sacrificial love, charitable virtue...)

~ disposable diapers

~ the dangling swirly sound of ice in a glass

~ for grace in my kids to be quick to forgive their often way too up tight mama... and even still treat me to join in their kid fun

~ homemade salsa

~ water guns and our kids' passionate delight in spraying everything they see with them

~ minds to learn, the privilege of learning and discovering, of thinking... and open access to such good stuff to engage our minds with (It isn't so where we live. The Party tells folks what to think about too many topics still...)