Kicking Off a New Year of Thankful Thursday

Good morning and may God be with us all as we begin another journey around the sun...and may we all move closer to the Son on our journey.

This morning I am linking up with sweet blogging friend, Rebecca Jo @ Knit By God's Hand. 

Today I am thankful...

** above all else that my God is on His throne and He is in control. When the whole world seems to have lost its mind and be spinning out of control, I know with certainty He has a plan and it is playing out. It may not make sense to me now, but one day, maybe not until I reach heaven, it will.

** I didn't have to get a root canal done on the tooth I broke when I saw the dentist yesterday. As it turned out, I'd already had one on that tooth 5 years ago! Huh. I totally don't remember that. Not even after being told and shown the x-rays. So now I'm a little worried about my memory, but it was great to not have to get the root canal! I am going to have to get a crown, though. I go back in 2 weeks for a cleaning and we'll talk about that and any other work to be done then. Yippee...something to look forward to. Not.

** all of my Amazon packages finally came yesterday so I was finally able to get my new desk set up the way I want it. I so love the L-shape. Now I have lots of room to spread out my books when I'm studying. (I use a LOT of reference books and different versions of the Bible when I study.)

This is the new desk. Sorry, not a great picture, but enough to show the pretty wood grain and the L-shape. I feel sorta like Capt. Kirk or maybe one of the NASA scientists monitoring the shuttle. The metal organizer is one of the things I was waiting for...cleared a whole lot of paper clutter up. The other thing is the leather-ish pad under the laptop. It protects the desk, works as a mousepad, and came with a matching snap band so I can roll it up and take it along if I really want to. I chose brown, but it came in lots of colors. The super bright light is a crafters lamp I bought at an auction this past summer for $2. The glass-shaded bankers lamp I found at a rummage sale for $5.

This photo shows why I need all the desk space when I study. These are some of the books I drag out when I get into a Bible study. I have 23 different Bibles just to get started. Some are the same translations, but have different commentaries or are journaling Bibles or coloring Bibles, some highlight different topics, one is a Hebrew and Greek keyword Bible, one explains Jewish culture. I've got concordances, dictionaries, maps, indexes of God's names and of women in the Bible, topical studies... You get the idea.

** Ha! I think I should be thankful my little office space doesn't explode from all the books crammed into it (you can see some of my other books on the floor under the desk...all unread...and there are three more bookcases besides the one in the picture and there is another shelf on that one!)

** my Bible study group was able to get together this week. Only a few had to join via Zoom. We start each new year with a gathering where we each share the word the Lord has given us for the year, the scripture we were led to, and what it means to us, where we believe it will take us. Everyone discusses and confirms, offers more insight...it's always such a blessed time.

** I received letters from both my biological father and my half-sister in the past week. (The brother I have met is not quite as relationship oriented, but I did get a text from him on Christmas Day so I know in his own way he does want one. He just isn't terribly close to any of his family other than his wife and children.) 

My sister has started to share and confide in me about things she doesn't share with her other siblings or our father. My father continues to surprise me. He is a bit of a character, or maybe an odd duck, but he is a thoughtful man, a man who believes in righting wrongs and doing his duty. To that end, he blessed me with another large financial gift. I keep telling him it's not necessary, but he says it helps him over the guilt of not being in my life until now.

** that Tim won't be on his current job much longer. He thinks only another week or so. He will be working all weekend as the company will be moving things in. Next week should be all about the little details and then hopeully he'll be off to start another project. The last month or so of a project is just awful from my point of view. There's so, so much to get done and there isn't room for mistakes and everyone's in a hurry. The pressure on Tim is relentless and he isn't the best at handling stress. He gets a break when a new job starts because it nearly always starts out pretty slow.

** that things did not go any worse than they did yesterday in Washington. The potential was there. My prayers are with the families of the dead and wounded. 

It is a sad place this country has come to. I definitely don't think Joe Biden will make a good president. The poor guy shows signs of dementia if you ask me. He will do what they tell him to do as best he can. If something happens and Harris becomes president, my thoughts are, may God have mercy on us all. 

I did support Trump in the election, not because I liked him as a man, (I think he's kind of awful as a person) but because of his policies. I didn't agree with those 100%, either, but I believe he had more there that was lined up with the Bible than Biden.

I want to share today, a quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1939 State of the Union address. Hitler was on the move in Europe. Roosevelt's words underscore how, until a few decades ago, America's leaders understood the vital connection between religion and democracy. The excerpt is taken from In God We Still Trust: A 365-Day Devotional by Dr. Richard G. Lee.

Storms from abroad directly challenge three institutions indispensable to Americans, now as always. The first is religion. It is the source of the other two--democracy and international good faith.

Religion, by teaching man his relationship to God, gives the individual a sense of his own dignity and teaches him to respect himself by respecting his neighbors.

Democracy, the practice of self-government, is a covenant among free men to respect the rights and liberties of their fellows. 

International good faith, a sister of democracy, springs from the will of civilized nations of men to respect the rights and liberties of other nations of men... 

There comes a time in the affairs of men when they must prepare to defend, not their homes alone, but the tenets of faith and humanity on which their churches, their governments, and their very civilization are founded. The defense of religion, of democracy, and of good faith among nations is all the same fight. To save one we must now make up our minds to save all. 

Something to think about... 

We stopped defending our faith in this country a long time ago. We did it in the name of loving everyone, but one of the enemy's biggest lies is that loving someone means we accept, condone, and embrace their sin. Nobody ever showed us how to do it better than Jesus. He loved without limit, but he did call people on their sin. Always. He did it with love, but he did it. We as a nation do not. 

We have taken God out of everything so no one is offended. Who, I ask is offended by God? The answer...those who are lost in their sin, those who are separated from Him. They are not offended, they are being convicted and they do not like the uncomfortable feeling it gives them. We have all been there at one point. We all had to be convicted in order to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Why would we want anyone else to miss out? And shouldn't we be worried more about offending God?

Time is running out, my friends. It is time to get real. Do it with love and kindness like Jesus, but do it!