Life is hard sometimes and painful. A couple of my friends have lost sons in the last few weeks and another a younger brother. Two adult sons and a brother, gone way too early. A tragic loss of a loved one, a health crisis, a failed relationship, all can cause grief, fear and anxiety. As the Scriptures say, in times such as these, God is our refuge and strength. Jesus was totally human as well as divine. Our Savior knows how we feel. He suffered loss in his physical time on earth. We don’t know how old he was when Joseph died, but you know he missed his earthly dad. He also lost his cousin John to a tragic death. When life is hard, we can go to him because he understands and grieves with us.

I want to shout, No more bad news! I feel overwhelmed sometimes with each day’s awful news, but I’m not discouraged. We have a day set aside once a year to remember to be thankful. With all the freedoms and material blessings we have, that hardly seems enough. No, I don’t deny the negatives in this world, but gratefulness is an attitude of mind. If we’re not careful we can become fixated on all the bad we see and forget how blessed we are. On Thanksgiving Day, let’s be grateful for the positives in our lives. And, every day, not just on Thanksgiving, let’s be thankful.

There are many ways to serve God, but have you ever thought that just being thankful and joyful can be a service to God?  Psalm 89:15-16 (NIV).  Even when we aren’t able to serve him in other ways, our joyful gratitude is a worshipful gift to our good God. And, we have so much to be thankful for, so many blessings, both physically and spiritually. This is a time we’ve set aside for thanksgiving, but not a day goes by that we don’t have reason to celebrate and rejoice in his righteous and merciful ways.

The older I get the more I appreciate our fantastic starry heavens. When I lived out in the country as a child I could see more stars, but even now with more light pollution I marvel at the night sky. The full moon is always thrilling to see and I like to pick out the Milky Way, the big dipper and Orion. Often Venus is visible and sometimes Mars and Jupiter. In Australia, my hosts pointed out the Southern Cross constellation, which can’t be seen from North America. Both sun and moon eclipses are spectacular, and I’ve often gotten up at midnight to watch meteor showers. Thank you, Lord. Your light shows are the best!

My daughter and I planned to take a short walk after eating, but her Jack Russell terrier didn’t go along with the plan. When we turned around to go back home, Callie stiffened her little legs and pulled against the leash. It was as if she were saying, You call this a walk? We’ve only gone half a dozen blocks. This is ridiculous! So instead of turning around, my daughter, being the diplomat, turned left and we walked around the block and back home. Though we didn’t walk much farther, Callie was happy. It made me think of those times I’ve drug my feet, not wanting to do something I should. Sometimes God in his infinite mercy has led me on a different path to achieve the same goal. Our God is not a tyrant. He works with us in our weaknesses.

Do you ever feel invisible? It’s not often, but the older I get the more I find myself feeling that way.  It makes me feel insecure and want to say, Hey, I’m still here! I can see myself absent from my friends and family not that many years from now, slowly fading away like the Cheshire cat. I’m thankful my family cares for me and is so close, but life does go on. They already can easily do without me in their lives. As I age, God’s commandment to honor our parents holds so much more meaning for me. Our older parents and other elders may not be able to contribute as much, but God knows they need to be acknowledged and respected for what they have done and still do.

Christians are expected to pray for their enemies. Christ said as much. That’s what we do. Don’t know about you, but after reading about the horrible atrocities various leaders commit on other nations and even their own people, I find it hard to pray for them. When I say that, I mean to pray for them sincerely. It’s not hard to say it, but to really mean it? It reminds me of Jonah. He wanted those wicked people of Nineveh to suffer for their evil ways, not repent and avoid punishment. Whenever I want someone to get what they deserve, I have to ask, is that what I want for myself. God have mercy!

Throughout my many years of writing and speaking I’ve exposed many of my personal foibles, hoping confessing my miscues and faults might encourage others. If one person had read and heard of all my shortcomings, he or she would think they know me pretty well. They would be wrong. I am a private person in so many ways. Even when I need prayer for healing, I rarely if ever ask my fellow church members to pray for me. I will ask my closest family members and, if the situation is really bad, sometimes my pastor for prayer. I chalk it up to my need for privacy, which, I’m afraid in my case, might be spelled p-r-i-d-e.

Ads here in Texas encourage people not to waste water. In our drought situation I understand the concern, but I have to wonder in reality how can you waste water? Water is marvelously designed to come in three forms, liquid, gas and frozen. If I boil water it turns into steam. If I put it into the freezer, it turns into ice. Much of the water we use runs off into rivers, sometimes after being treated and recycled many times on its way to the sea. There it evaporates into the air to come back to us as rain. It makes me think of love. No matter how much love you give or receive, it’s never wasted. God makes sure of that.

In Deuteronomy 6:4-5 is the Shema, translated “listen to God.” The word means more than listen, it involves acting on what you hear. Jesus, a Jew, and very familiar with the Shema, refers to hearing from God and acting on what you hear in Mark 12:29-31.  But, have you ever prayed to hear from God and then dreaded what you might hear? What if God gave you something to do that you can’t do or wouldn’t like to do or both? If you have, and I’ve been guilty, ask yourself, is the God I serve trustworthy. I heard a pastor say if you ask God for his will, he’s likely to say, relax on the doing and focus on the being. And what you hear will more likely be something you enjoy, not the opposite. We mustn’t fear to hear from God. What God wants from us is a relationship. He wants us to be with him.