Thanksgiving 2009

How very, very disappointed in myself I am. I just tried to look back at this time last year so I could compare Thanksgiving Days and I didn't blog!!!! I was visiting with my sister, so I may not have had as easy access to the computer, but still.....the posts the day(s) before focused on the Pie Challenge for Kyrgyzstan (which can still be donated to and I am only $195 away....go here!) and how I was just *so* not feeling an adoption from Kyrgyzstan was going to happen and I was just so....sad. Sad children suffered and I couldn't do anything more. Sad that I *STILL* didn't have a little one to celebrate the holidays with. Sad that I was just trying to find something to not be sad about....Maybe I was just thinking I didn't have that much to be thankful for, and didn't feel like posting. This is where my disappointment is because even then, I was so blessed beyond belief and I'm angry I didn't recognize it more.

Though this is obviously an appropriate post because it is Thanksgiving Day, it is a post I could make every single day....and full of things I will try to remember more on a daily basis.

Dear Lord, I am most thankful for:

• Your grace, mercy, faithfulness and salvation
• My husband--he's brilliant, hard-working, an incredible father and provider
• My precious, miraculous and stubborn little boy....I cannot wait to meet you
• My family--regardless of current relationship status, I know I am loved
• My friends--I am overwhelmed with people who care for me, worry about me and shower me with their attention and well-wishes
• My sweet Dixie Belle--though she is a PISTOL, she is a pistol full of snuggles and devotion
• My country--how I was blessed to be born here, I'll never know, but am eternally grateful for the blessing of America and her freedoms
• My "children"--every little boy and girl for whom I have had the privilege of being a part of his or her life has touched mine so deeply...
• People who are willing to sacrifice--whether it is for their faith, their convictions or their fellow human...realizing there is something more is so admirable
• Loved ones that I have lost...though I miss them terribly, I'm thankful for their part in my life

There are so many things I have to be thankful for this year...even as I sit waiting for Matthew to make his debut, and am admittedly a little nervous about what labor is going be like, I am thankful that I have had the blessing of pregnancy--something I basically thought was never going to happen. Mom and I were talking last night about how different this time of year is than we thought it would be. We never in our wildest dreams imagined that we wouldn't have a little baby girl eating her first Thanksgiving dinner with us and we certainly didn't imagine that we would be waiting for a chubby-cheeked little baby boy to decide he was going to come out after all.

Again, Lord, thank you for your many, many blessings.