Thanksgiving – a lesson well learned!

I awoke this morning thinking that I should share some kind of thanksgiving writing with my blog followers. I know that many of you are from countries other than the USA and are not celebrating Thanksgiving today, but I do believe that all of us, no matter what our life is like, have something to be thankful for today so I believe that every day can be a Thanksgiving day.

I do, truly, love you all with the love of Christ as He has so given me the grace to do so. I, by no means, wish to discount what you each may be going through. *1 Thess. 5:18 (NKJV) “in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.“

As I awoke and thought about this, this true story from my life that I’ve wanted to share came to mind. Between 1992 and 2001, I worked at a hospital in Ohio. For the first four years, my main job was in the emergency room. I officially worked through the admitting office but on third shift there were two of us on duty and we worked in the emergency room, registering the emergency room patients, while admitting mostly emergency room patients. I also picked up hours on other shifts through the emergency room. That was sure some job that I will never forget.

We had just horrendous nights. There were nights that we’d go the entire shift without even getting a bathroom break. And, amidst this mayhem, my co-workers would many times be tired to the point of tears. That is why I’ve been so anxious to share my experiences there because through them God surely kept me from tears. For one, please check out my blog post about prayer (http://somethingbyjuliana.blogspot.com/2010/06/power-of-prayer-two-miraculous-accounts.html) and, the way I learned to handle all that I saw I’ll reflect upon in couple of ways. At first I so thought that I just couldn’t handle seeing all the pain but it came to mind for me to start praying for the people that came into be treated. This ALWAYS helped me in return.

Then, I learned to think of this: that no matter how bad of a night I was having, that most of them were probably having a worse night.

I can honestly share that in the more than 22 years since I rededicated my life to the Lord, I do not know of even one day where I have ceased to thank and praise Him. I just always have known in my heart that even if I don’t feel like praising Him or giving Him thanks that He rewards this surrender. The act of doing it makes me feel more like doing it. I’ve always heard that God inhabits the praises of His people but I didn’t know the exact reference so I did a search for it at Google.com which I have shared the link below if you would like to know more in regards to this.

So, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Reference:
*Phil. 4:6
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;”
http://www.google.com/search?q=the+Lord+inhabits+the+praises+of+his+people&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&ie=utf8&oe=utf8&rlz=1I7ADRA_en