Sunday, November 6, 2011

30 Days of Thankfulness: Day 6

One of my greatest joys during the week is teaching the 2's & 3's class on Sunday morning.  I haven't regularly taught that age group since my post-college days.  I love how our curriculum is set up; we have a theme every month, with a verse and one or two stories that build on each other every week.  November is "God Provides for Me", which our verse being Philippians 4:19, and our story was of Jesus miraculously feeding five thousand people with a mere five loaves of bread and two fish.  Sometimes we skim over this story, but it such a great story of a child's faith and God's provision, even for those who doubt!

So in light of that, I am thankful that God provides for me.  I will be honest, there are days I fuss and stress and greatly feel the strain of the small salary that Jonathan receives, but then God checks my heart.  Do I want some new jeans and a fun pair of dress shoes to go with them?  Yes.  Do I need them?  No.  Yet God provides for me.  For example, last month a friend passed on a pair of nearly new jeans that didn't fit her well, that fit me perfectly.  Now I am just praying for the shoes in my size!  :-)  We are blessed; the kids overflow with clothes, so much so I get to enjoy passing them on to others who need them.  Do I want a mani/pedi?  Absolutely!  Yet it when it comes to getting my nails done or buying diapers for the month for Ethan, we get diapers, and we have never run out over this last year.  Do we go hungry?  No.  I've learned to feed our family on $300 a month; that is more than most families in third world countries make in a year.  We don't eat out very often, and that's okay.  But taking in the fact that every five seconds a child dies from hunger-related causes, we are blessed.  If you take a look at Jonathan and I, we are excellent examples that we get more than enough calories!  Are our meals more simple now?  Oh yes!  Convenience foods are a treat nowadays, and though our meals are simple, they are more wholesome and nutritious than what we used to eat.  When we are good stewards with what God gives us, there is always enough in each paycheck to cover our family's necessities.

I guess with all that, what I am trying to say, is that even though we are fiscally poor by pretty much every standard out there in our culture, we are oh so very rich.  God does supply all of our needs.  Not our wants, but our needs (my husband does think a new smart phone is a need... we are trying to see eye-to-eye on that one!).  We have a roof over our head, clothes on our back, food in our cupboards, and transportation in our driveway.  Blessed, blessed indeed!

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