Thankful Reality

 It's that time of year... I keep seeing homey recipes and beautifully decorated homes just in time for the season.  I feel extremely pulled this year.  I too want a porch with potted mums and pretty white pumpkins.  I tried.  But the mums froze a couple weeks ago and the pumpkins I have are little wrinkled things.  I am not complaining.  There is, after all, a certain strength in reality and reality for us this year is, we are much too busy trying to keep up with our very real life.

This kid is very helpful for keeping it real.  The photo also shows my ineptness as a photographer and at setting the scene for a natural pose.  It looks like it is; someone trying really hard to take a picture that looks like something and of course its not. It's not anything that means anything to you.  Just my beautiful child holding a tin pumpkin as she pops open her eyes wide and smiles artificially.  She basically said it... " Yeah Mom, I'll go like this and you will take a picture that looks dorky."

 OK. but the point is, I try to find time for the pretty things in life.  I might not pull it off very well, but I do try.

Another reality is while I am extremely busy teaching, grading tests, making bulletin boards and 100's charts, planning art projects, and doing report cards; the other side of my brain is still hankering to sit and write. I need to sort through ALL this renewal of numbers and words, of people and personalities, and still find time to write the words on my heart to my Almighty Counselor, and to study The Word.


When I finally get to the end of the loose ends of not getting my home decorated just right, the pecan pie I only dream of making, and enough time spent with my Maker and Redeemer, I fall into THANKFULNESS and it's all just right.  Being thankful is a decision that has renewed my joy of life so often.  BEING THANKFUL draws me back to the real WHO and WHAT of living. Jesus, the one WHO matters, and the WHAT it's all about.

Happy Weekend...