{"id":25005,"date":"2019-02-09T03:30:47","date_gmt":"2019-02-09T11:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/?p=25005"},"modified":"2019-02-08T12:09:29","modified_gmt":"2019-02-08T20:09:29","slug":"february-9-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2019\/02\/09\/february-9-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"February 9, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div><\/div><\/div>

\u201cRejoice always, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you<\/em>.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0<\/em>1 Thessalonians 5:16-18<\/p>\n

Give Thanks<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Sitting on the edge of my bed, I am establishing a morning habit of thinking of five things for which I am grateful, without repeating. Oh, this is easy, I thought to myself. I have much for which to be thankful. So day one, I thought, \u201cOkay, God, You are my number one \u201cgrateful\u201d card, so I will play it first and then cannot use that card again. It is a given.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, of course, the next grateful card would be my husband. My family came next, and I continued down the line with the names of loved ones and friends and roof over my head, a car to get us to church. Then I counted all the ways I am thankful for my church and its staff who make certain the flock is fed and tended.<\/p>\n

After the family, friend, and church cards were played, I began to think through the duties and appointments for each day and was grateful for doctors, dentists and physical therapists, Starbucks, and Dutch Bros, of course.<\/p>\n

Ok, now what. I am grateful for air to breathe, rain to water the earth, my pets, and neighbors etc.<\/p>\n

All the \u201cnormal\u201d stuff I have already processed. Now I have to think. Hmmm\u2026 my health is good (although there are age-related aches, pains, and issues.) My mind switches to the need to be praying for the ones who aren\u2019t as healthy, and for those who have had to endure loss.<\/p>\n

My focus had switched to considering the needs of my family and friends, so I pulled my mind back to my goal of first giving thanks. Being thankful, however, was becoming a challenge, so I purchased a \u201cGratitude Journal\u201d to help focus my heart on being grateful. He is teaching me to pray\u2014beginning with thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

As I dig deeper past anxiety over personal situations, I am reminded of Philippians 4:6: \u201cDo not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving<\/strong>, present your requests to God\u201d <\/em>(Philippians 4:6 NIV).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Has anxiety robbed me of my thankful, joyful heart? A cheerful, thankful heart does good like a medicine, right? Perhaps it is even a cure\u00a0<\/strong>for anxiety!<\/p>\n

\u201cThank You, Father, for bringing me back to the reality that I have all I need to combat anxiety because as I focus on Your goodness, my heart will be full of thanksgiving. My desire is to delight You, Lord, so I will continue to cultivate a thankful heart.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-6vj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25005"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25006,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25005\/revisions\/25006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}