The End of Thankfuls

I’d written in October about a new tradition – The Month of Thankfuls. So, I thought I’d share a few of them with you…

To The Beau from me:Thankful for left over sausage that made an EXCELLENT sausage egg sandwich for breakfast.

From The Beau: Beautiful weather. A great victory. (His football team won) And a beautiful woman to share it all with.

From Fred: Thankful that you still reach for and hold my hand everywhere we go.

From Fred: Thankful for the best opening day ever! Thankful for a life filled with you as my wife. [The first opening day he was home and wasn’t hunting in over 30 years. We’re blessed with romantic men.]

After they had friends over for dinner, from Gig: Thankful for taste testers! They will eat anything! Good friends!

This isn’t as redneck as it sounds from The Beau: Thankful for a good “possum” hunt!  And this classic to her parents:  Today I’m really thankful for time alone with you (Gig said, “That sounds dirty.” He said, “Put a winky face!”) 🙂

And to Gig: Thankful for all the talks we have & the humor we share since we’re hysterically funny. Had to put my glasses on cause I couldn’t tell if it said tumor or humor.

From Sis: I’m thankful for the interesting discussions with you that make me think and really look at my beliefs. [Me: I like your thankful. Sis: I like that you like my thankful about what I like about you. Me: Well there’s that part too. Sis: ROFL]

See, I am hysterically funny!

From Sis after a slow response: HEY! Aren’t you thankful for me today?!?

It had been one of those days and I’d been melancholy: Thankful that you love me even when I’m grumpy. And that you’re obedient. [she said ‘yes ma’am’ when she was starting to make me cry and I said “now hush”]

As a joke, I sent: Thankful I didn’t get caught. [Gig responded: LOL sneaky sneaky! (With that reply, I’ll call her if there’s ever a body to hide.)] Fred’s reply, “What did you do to get caught?” Husbands!

OK, I know this sounds funny, but it was the mom in me: Thankful for a kid who still puts his head in my lap & let’s me braid his hair.

We had T-giving on Sunday instead of Thursday: Thankful all the kids will be here today. We’ll eat well! Seems appropriate for the last day of Thankfuls. We may have to make this a tradition!

Hope you took a moment to be Thankful – most of us have SO much more than we need.

 

Getting Ready for Thankful

It’s mid-October. Where did it go?!

So, I’m excited that November is just around the corner and I’ll get to start a project that has become one of my all time favorites. The Month of Thankfuls.

Two years ago, I’d just read some article – I don’t even remember what or where – but it was about doing a thankful list every day for the month of November. I decided to take mine a little farther. For the month, I started sending a text every day to 4 people about what I was thankful for that day. Sometimes, it was the same text to everyone, and sometimes, it was unique to that person. I only did 4 people: Fred, Gig, Boo and my sister.

And then the fun started…

They started texting THEIR thankfuls back. Gig even included The Beau’s thankfuls. It was so much fun to see what was on their minds that day. Fred probably wins for most romantic. For a man of few words, he uses his well. Kind of those “Awwww” moments.

When the month was over, I took the list of Gig and The Beau’s thankfuls and made them into a book. I used this great Bob Marley quote about “he’s not perfect” as a cover page and gave it to them as a Christmas gift. Gig & I have this “thing”…if you make the other cry over a gift at Christmas, then Christmas was successful. I made her cry with the Thankful book. It was great!

I just want you to know it isn’t hard or really time consuming.  Here are some examples:

Thankful for nice weather. It’s a gorgeous day for football!

“Ice cold beer! Your parents are going to think I’m horrible!” (obviously The Beau’s..and we didn’t, but we did laugh.)

Thankful your taste has definitely improved in guys. Call me if you’re awake.

You’re strong & funny & kind…you is 🙂 (we’d just watched The Help)

I’m thankful for your laugh. Sending you silly things to hear it is so cool. I love hearing you laugh.

That you trust me enough to tell me when I screwed up and that you have patience with me. I love you!

I’m thankful for music that I can dance to. Makes my ears happy. : )

That you are happy.

I’m thankful that I’m happy too.

I’m thankful that my parents love you so much. (To which I responded, “You tell The Beau-I’m BEYOND thankful for this.”)

Loved the day w/you just talking about anything, everything.

I’m thankful that I get to spend time with you. And that there isn’t a race of super intelligent gorillas attacking us. (I really don’t remember what that was about!)

Beat the school bus (I take ’em as I get ’em) (I was racing to get in front of the school bus  – not racing the actual school bus, but going a different route so I wouldn’t end up behind the bus making all the pick up stops…just in case that needed an explanation.)

See, they aren’t hard and looking back on all of them at the end of the month was just delightful!

I challenge you. Do the Month of Thankfuls. Even if you just save the line of texts to that person. But I’m saving all of mine. Maybe you’ll see one just to you right here on this blog..who knows?

Interrupted

I finished Jen Hatmaker’s book, Interrupted: When Jesus Wrecks Your Comfortable Christianity this morning. Her writing style seems similar to mine – a little sarcastic, a little crazy. It’s one of those books that you want to buy a whole case of and hand out to people. At least it was for me.

Jen’s name started showing up first when a friend mentioned her blog, www.jenhatmaker.com, then I saw an ad for their HGTV show, My Big Family Renovation, and then someone mentioned her books and even last week an excellent post about raising brave children from Women of Faith showed up in my Inbox. So I’m considering this Divine Suggestion.

Jen’s not the regular pastor’s wife-again that voice is a bit sarcastic-but you cannot fault her heart for Jesus and her obvious love for “poor people”. Even Jen recommends this book over some of her others (which I’ll be reading) as the “most relevant and vital to my generation”. Interrupted broke my heart with some statistics about where today’s church looks to be headed: “…roughly 62 percent of all unchurched adults were formerly churched…approximately half of all American churches did not add one new person through conversion growth last year…94  percent of churches either were not growing or were losing ground in the communities they serve…most outsiders are not anti-church (our gospel isn’t provocative enough to incite backlash anymore); they simply dismiss the church as irrelevant to their real lives since it seems mostly irrelevant to the people who go there” (emphasis added).

Don’t assume this is a “preachy” book. It so is not. It’s her journey, not only of a conviction, but of her heart. I highly recommend it. But be prepared. It may interrupt your life too.

P.S. I’ll find something written by Shane Claiborne (The Irresistible Revolution) too. Anyone who can preach a sermon that convicts 2 Texans to give up their relatively new cowboy boots to put shoes on the feet of Austin’s homeless and walk barefoot out of church one Easter…well, I want to read something he wrote.