* journal entry on Thanksgiving Eve The morning before Thanksgiving, and I am not as grateful as I really should be. I really honor and respect those who remind themselves to make lists of things they are thankful for throughout the year and not just during one week of November each year (if that). I am not so inclined, and I really need to be.

I am thankful to have a job at all these days. Though it is a ministry job at a respectful church who is completely debt free and has all finances in the black via budge and salary cut backs, at least they have never had to cut jobs all together. I am grateful and thankful.

I have a healthy daughter and a healthy one on the way. With so many friends close to me having experienced miscarriages and even more painful loss, it hardly seems right to complain that we were not exactly "ready" for this second child-to-be. I am thankful and grateful.

I am thankful for my wife and our marriage continuing and fighting against any societal norm. Nearly every day in ministry there is reference to another church marriage coming to an end or on the rocks near an end. Conversations reveal one or both are simply unwilling to humble themselves and grow up to be adults willing to do the hard work of maintaining a loving marriage. My wife has stood by me when I have been numbed out of emotion and affection. She has not given up or walked away. We both love one another by learning to love more and better and more humbly. I am thankful for her and our marriage.

I am thankful for God's grace and mercy on me. Though my heart and soul are distant more often than not, I am always brought back to his grace and love. Though my natural heart resists the pure and holy spirit of God and pursues the lies a true enemy would want my heart to be convinced of, my cries to God have been heard. He remains close and near. I cannot help but be thankful for these things.

There is far more to be thankful for in my life, and my heart would do well to actively remember those things far more often than I do.