Thankful Hearts

I learned a good lesson this week about being thankful even when things don't go as planned. For all my talk about having a thankful heart, I learned a lesson about walking my talk!

Thanksgiving dinner was originally planned for 16. My inlaws were coming and I had invited a few other people for dinner at 1:00. My inlaws live 8 hours away and I was expecting them around 4:00 on Wednesday. Close to 4:00 I decided to check my facebook account. Imagine my surprise to see that my mother-in-law had posted around 3:00 that she had just taken a cheesecake out of the oven.

Cheesecake? 3:00 p.m.? What was she doing taking a cake out of the oven when she should have been about an hour from my house at that point? I called their house to hear her always cheerful voice answer the phone. "Mom?" "Why are you not almost here?" She said, "Didn't you get my email?"

She had sent an email a few weeks earlier saying they would be here on Thursday between 4-5 p.m. I honestly thought she had made a mistake and typed in the wrong day. They have always come on Wednesday and we always have dinner early afternoon. Needless to say, I was disappointed and didn't handle it well at first.

I called my other guests to see if we could make dinner later and that didn't work for them so they canceled. Fortunately, because I have been making an effort to be thankful in all things I was able to collect myself and call my mother-in-law back to let her know it was okay and that it would just be us for dinner.

She is always sweet and forgiving and didn't hold my fit....ahem....I mean, reaction against me. ;-)

You know what? This ended up being a very good Thanksgiving. It wasn't all about the food. It was about giving thanks.

I always try to do something special for the holidays. This year I made place cards for each person and then wrote what we appreciated about them inside.



We then each took turns reading a Bible verse of thanksgiving and praise.



Dan & I had been doing this the entire month and every day the kids and us would write on a slip of paper what we were thankful for. We took turns reading these as well. It's surprising at how just listing thankful things can add up over a month.



Then, we had a wonderful dinner. Of course, food always makes these two happy.



I have to say that it ended up being such a peaceful and restful day. I truly can say that I have a thankful heart for all the Lord has done and is doing in my life!

I hope each of you had a blessed Thanksgiving as well.