Thankful...

I'm thankful for many things, and thought I'd share just a few of them:

• A God who never tires of our new beginnings and is always the same, yesterday, today, and forever
• A house to live in and that we get to stay here for a while
• Family-- our immediate family and extended family
• Friends who brought us groceries... a LOT of groceries 
• That things change, and in a while we'll be settled in and everything that seems new right now will be "old hat"
• A supportive church family
• Friends who bless us with friendship, prayers, and encouraging words
• Warm clothes (yes, already!)

I've been pondering lately what it looks like to deal "well" with stress (the outside stresses of change, death of a loved one, family changes, etc.). Thankfulness is one thing that I don't think ever hurts, and in some amazing way, it heals. Running away from our troubles doesn't seem to change them. Admitting our reality doesn't make it worse: in fact, I believe God loves to hear us pour out our hearts to Him and then we can listen while He pours out His heart to us. And in the middle of our pain, we often find friends we didn't know we had, receive gifts from people we didn't know would offer them, and find strength to carry on when we didn't think we could. Never mind that stress grows and changes us!

In reality, I haven't been doing a lot of pondering lately. Mostly I've been trying to get our school year planned, doing some cooking and housework, meeting with a few friends, hugging random strangers (a most embarrassing moment that turned into a blessing), wishing I had time to sit down and blog, and the million other things every mom does.