I can't seem to help but have this song in my head right now. Last Thursday night we had our Christmas ladies meeting at church & each of us (it was just a small crowd of 8 that night) were to talk about the blessings in our life this year.
I know I've had many blessings this year, the biggest for me being Addison. But, there's been many difficulties too: Ellie, finances, family. To me the difficulties are even a blessing because you can see how God is glorified through those trials and for me personally I believe they increase my walk with the Lord. I believe that's a huge blessing.
One of the ladies brought up my "Starbucks story" that she wanted me to share. I've mentioned it to some in real life but never on my blog before. See, even though money is really tight we keep $5 a week in our budget so that I can get a weekly coffee. It's the only thing I spend money on & it doubles as my alone time (another blessing: Ray's job allows him to be home most mornings so I can go out along while he watches Addison). But, somehow, every single week this year (& there's only two short weeks left) the Lord has provided so that I'm able to get more than one coffee a week (a treat from friends, unexpected gift cards, etc.). Every week! I've never prayed & asked God to do this. But I see it as such a neat blessing that the Lord knows that this is my treat that I really look forward to & that he cares for me so much that he gives me this in abundance without me even asking for it! And it even seems silly to me as its not truly necessary but I think it's so neat. You can't tell me that God doesn't care about the little things in our lives!
I had to leave before we were able to do the missionary project for the month: putting together gift cards for families in need. I was completely & utterly surprised when on Sunday I was handed a little gift bag filled with gift certificates to Target, Sam's, & Walmart! Those ladies had just added another blessing to our lives as those gift cards were enough for us to purchase either two weeks worth of groceries or FOUR MONTHS worth of diapers!
There are so many other blessings in our lives but I'll leave you with another one, seemingly insignificant but a blessing for us nonetheless.
This little tree here. We were going to purchse a real tree this year but never seemed to get around to it. I must admit, I kept feeling silly about spending so much money on a tree, too, even though I love having one. So, as Ray was taking the Christmas decorations down from the attic this year, he came across a little box which held a small artificial 3-foot Christmas tree. At first we still planned to get a nice big real tree but my practical side came through (thankfully) & I went ahead & set up this little number on a table in our family room.
How neat is that! We've lived here for over two years & had never found this box before (left by the previous owners, I assume). So, there's the last little blessing to share today.
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