My Thankful Thursday.....

Today I am thankful that God is Good.
So this evening during youth night, (I WAS paying attention, I promise) I was thinking of times that have been a trial to me, but I was also seeing certain things that happened within the larger circumstance that I believe was God's hand in it, protecting me or preparing me or strengthening me.....

I spent my 20th birthday in M_____ this year....Birthdays are special at my house, we all have a meal together, open presents together, watch a movie together...and I treasure those times. Well through different circumstances, for my last five birthdays or so, I haven't been able to have ALL of my family with me. Either they were in M_____ or across the ocean, or I was in Nebraska (Which is a special birthday in my memory :) ) So I'll admit it bothered me, that I couldn't seem to have the perfect birthday that I wanted...selfish of me..I know..Sorry :(

But do you know that my sister, Stephanie has Never had my 'perfect' birthday on her birthday? We're always at a convention so we celebrate just days or sometimes weeks later. One year we had to work hard just to make sure we had it in the same month (Did I mention her birthday's on the 4th?)

So this year..I had no family...and I was missing them and bummed out...but trying not to be. Morning of my birthday dawned bright and clear and I woke up to P____ and her cute baby boy singing happy birthday to me and giving me flowers. Special, huh? And then I walked to the A____'s and the girls gave me a present that my sister Jane sent me in the mail and gave me hugs...wished me happy birthday...Dad and Mom called me and wished me Happy Birthday....Katie, Stepi and Joe did the same....and then I got a bouquet of flowers from my peeps..well it took me all of those happy things to work through my glum and decided that,
First: It was my Birthday, Hurrah! I could be happy.
Second: I never got to celebrate with the M_____ people before! This was special!
Third: It was more than time to get out of my glum and make other people happy :)

So....thank you, God.... the A____'s and I had a wonderful, fun, happy birthday... I got to spend some special time with the girls...I guess the long and short of it, is that I have some really good memories of that morning of my 20th birthday...........
and then the ground dropped out from under my feet.
We were still eating lunch when my cell phone rang. I had been getting happy birthday calls all day so I answered with little trepidation (More on that later) and my Mom tells me that my great-grandma is gone...She's dead, just like that. She had had an appointment the day before and the doctors had said she was in the best of health. This grandma was barely ever ill. She was a spry young lady :) and in the last two years I had gotten to know her a little better, and I was looking forward to talking with her again. It was hard...really. I didn't want to think about it so I cleaned all the floors and bathroom I could find, then I went home and sobbed on the phone to Mom. I wanted to go home...but that didn't work out..so I stayed. I didn't get to say Good-bye. I went home the next weekend, and went to Grandma's house...and it was all messed up. They were boxing things up, throwing things out, cleaning out drawers. -STOP! This is Grandma's House! But at least then I could cry on Mom's shoulder...

Did you know that God even prepared me mentally for losing someone while I was in M_____?
I was preparing myself to spend two months away from my family....and thoughts about 'What would happen if I never saw them again?' spun in my head. Then after I was there, I had a dream, I was in the fields...My hands were dirty...and my cell phone rang...It was Dad..There was something wrong...But he won't tell me what it was till a friend he had called got to me....He didn't want me to be alone when he told me 'the news'...The implications was the my mom was hurt or gone....I was scared so bad I woke myself up crying....next day I was in the fields, the dream had bothered me so I stuck my cell phone is my pocket....I was weeding...my hands were dirty ...my cell phone rang....
....and I heard my beloved Mother's voice telling me "Hello, Pretty Girl!" She just wanted to hear my voice and tell me that she loved me.....

I have to think things through...look at them from every angle...God let me think about losing some one close to me for almost two months before it happened so I could deal with it. A phone call i think is the hardest way to learn something like that. I couldn't see my mother, and she couldn't give me a hug....
But Allie did though.. the rest of the day she kept hugging me and telling me she was sorry that I had lost my grandma. She was such a comfort :)

Today God was opening my eyes and showing me all the ways he had been preparing me to deal with the hard trial I had to go through that week. I thought spending a birthday away from family was bad. It seems so trivial now. Losing a Grandma is ten times worse. But even in that he encouraged me to have a good attitude in the morning and now I have happy memories to treasure of that day, not focus solely on the tragedy that happened.

So I guess I'm just happy tonight....God takes care of me and prepares me...The Lord giveth and the Lord Taketh away....Blessed be his name.
This was supposed to be a happy, encouraging post...I'm not sure quite how it's turned out

The Song that they sang at my Grandma's Funeral:
Come to Jesus By Chris Rice