For All He Has Done

“For all that He has done, for all that He is doing, for all that He’ll ever do for us…[We give thanks].”

Jesse can read, you guys. And more than that, he can understand what he reads. That is a grace we were not expecting to receive so quickly. We are exceedingly grateful for such an extravagant gift from God! I am thankful, too, for a God who has never once lost sight of me, even though I have looked away from Him many, many times. I am thankful for a God who has upheld and sustained me, gently placing his hand under my quivering chin and raising my eyes to Him, when I have been too weak to look up on my own. I am grateful in ways I will never adequately be able to express for the people the Lord has surrounded us with throughout all of this to give us strength, encouragement, and help. I am thankful for a God who saw fit to give us the precious gift of cancer to carry in this life so that people will look to Him and know how very good and gracious He is in our rejoicings and in our sufferings. I am grateful for a God who has given us the gift of time with Jesse here while we wait for eternity. I am grateful for the many ways we are being allowed to see God display His glory to us in the daily grind of life with our Ebenezer.  Most importantly, while I am abundantly thankful to have Jesse with us this Thanksgiving, I am the most thankful for the understanding that, had Jesse not been here with us this year, he would have been fully restored and at peace with Jesus. I am learning every day that real, resolved thankfulness does not come from being thankful for God’s provision of objects-or even people-in this temporary life, but from understanding what I have gained through no effort of my own…the inheritance of God’s kingdom through the sacrifice of Jesus. I am bought, claimed, adopted, redeemed;  and because of that, because of the Gospel, I am thankful.

  “May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”  Colossians 1:11-14