The Best Way to Start the Week

If we aren’t thankful to God for now — 

why would we be joyful for more?

The dandelions keep shaking out their happy manes on the lawn, roaring summer’s triumphant entry.

There are campfires and hymns and these boys with sparking light at the end of their fingertips.

There is the sun coming up in the dark and a way to begin again.

When your heart’s grateful to God at the start of the day, you can trust God in the hurtful of the day.

The grateful heart can trust God in the hurtful.

A woman taking chemo, she counts His graces, and the mama of a prodigal and the wife abandoned and overwhelmed, they keep count and know the rhythm of trust — and all is grace only because our God will use it all and all is being transfigured to bring glory to Christ and to restore us to the image of Christ.

The world tips a bit on a summer evening.

Everything is being spun around and upside down and everything steadies with this: Practice gratitude to God to practice your Faith in God.

The hymns around the campfire, you can hear them on a summer night — how they rise like this inextinguishable praise.

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giving thanks here and now and always… the endless One Thousand Gifts:

boys wearing hats on summer days #3588

mama’s long hair blowing in the wind #3589

fireworks in a mason jar #3590

he and I switching pillows in the middle of the night #3591

evening rhythms that make mornings harmonious #3592

what to remember this weekend #3593

Saturday afternoon serving with another family of 10 to wash windows & do spring cleaning at a Pregnancy Crisis & Care Home #3594

Hope whispering while we peel squash: “what’s one thing we can thank the Lord for right now?” #3595

thanks be to God who does not squander the painful but uses it to purify #3596

a woman who reaches over and squeezes my hand after the sermon #3597

transparent church #3598

a neighbor stopping in after Sunday dinner, just to chat #3598

the whole family lingering long out on the porch, laughing too loud #3599

60 Summer activities for kids #3600

This prayer:#3601

“Whom have I in heaven but you?

    And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

  My flesh and my heart may fail,

    but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Ps. 73: 24-26

…. thanks be to God

 

Take May’s Joy Dare? Print it for the fridge and dare everyone in the family to find these 3 gifts from His hand each day:

Click here to print May’s Joy Dare:  and begin this week right!

Count three gifts a day, 1000 gifts in 2012 (and be entered to win the NikonD90 camera?) Thank-you is a word that can change you, your world – the whole world!

HOW TO ENTER MAY’S GIVEAWAY:

Each day of May, either share your gifts on on Twitter {label with #1000gifts #JoyDare so we can find you!}, or with us in the gratitude community at Facebook , or on Pinterest (#1000gifts).

Each day, 3 people will who share their gifts via Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest will be randomly selected & entered into a drawing for JOY BASKET: a gift card @ Amazon {100$} & {signed copies of One Thousand Gifts, the photographic gift book, the DayBrightner, and the family gratitude journal} Give thanks to Him in the assembly!

Join us? And happily change everything by keeping your own crazy list of One Thousand Gifts?

Please, jump in, make your life about giving thanks to God! — Just add the direct URL to your specific 1000 gift list post… and if you join us, we humbly ask that you please help us find each other in our refrain of thanks by sharing the community’s graphic within your post.

Give thanks to the Lord! His Love Endures Forever!

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 Click here to download a free Easter Devotional : A Trail to the Tree {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}