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Thankfulness; Thanksgiving Cards Colorful autumn artwork, original design by Shelly Reeves Smith, decorates each card in this set of six for Thanksgiving. Heavy fine quality cardstock in creamy vellum with stylistic font. Includes six decorative envelopes.

The Power of Thanksgiving Thanksgiving can take place any day of the year in every grateful heart. The Power of Thanksgiving offers 96 pages of devotions that encourage thanksgiving and praise for everything from the miraculous to the everyday. Compiled from the works of several writers including bestselling author Anita Corrine Donihue, The Power of Thanksgiving is sure to inspire you to count your blessings and thank the Giver of all good things. Mass Market.

Thank You God Art Flag, Large Artistic flower designs created from buttons and beads are showcased on marbled green background with message Thank you God for everything! Fashioned of 100% polyester, for display indoors or out. 28" x 40".

A Year of Grace: 365 Mealtime Prayers By Williams S. Kervin, comp. This book is an anthology of graces, with a rich variety of prayers, historic and contemporary, from around the world. These graces can be used in the home, at school, at formal or family meals. They can help us to rediscover the importance of shared hospitality and eating together, even in our individualistic age. Themes include thankfulness for creation, hospitality and friendship, the countryside and the seasons, and social justice. The graces can be used throughout the year, and are fully indexed to make finding a timely prayer quick and easy. More Prayers and Blessings

How Does Someone Keep From Hardening Their Heart When Bad Things Happen?

What's the key that some have discovered that keeps their hearts soft, receptive and open even as horrible tragedy strikes their lives? I don't know all the answers but I can definitely see a running theme in the lives of those around me who I have considered my spiritual mentors. That theme is a life that has practiced thankfulness.

I worked in a refugee camp along the Thai/Cambodian border in 1984. If you saw the movie "The Killing Fields" the very last scene of the movie, when the Cambodian reporter finally makes it to freedom was shot in this camp. Bamboo huts, open sewage, dirt floors, bland and insufficient diet marked the daily life of these refugees. Young women would dig a pit under their huts to hide from the drunken Thai soldiers that were supposed to be protecting them. Crime and corruption were rampant. Yet the church was growing at an incredible rate. Many Buddhists faced open mocking and rejection from their families if they converted to Christianity. However, what set them apart was the light of Jesus in their lives and the smiles on their faces. Even when their bellies were rumbling, they could still rejoice in Christ and find joy in the smallest things.

One young man, Duan, accepted the Lord about a year before I arrived in the camp. His love for Christ was so infectious and his ready laugh often filled our little office. Every day he would come into work and share with me the wonderful things God was doing in his life. He'd rejoice over having an extra half an egg for dinner, he'd give thanks as he'd show how an older sister in Christ repaired his jeans, patching over the patches. Even when his heart was broken, when a girl he had set his affections on did not feel the same way, he would still be thankful. And many within the area he lived came to know Christ by being drawn to his positive heart. His hut literally shone the light of Jesus, most of the light contained in his smile. Duan could have been a bitter young man, his family had been murdered and he was starved and beaten by the Khmer Rouge. He saw young women and men tortured then brutally executed right in front of him. Yet he had the softest, most tender heart I had seen up to that point in my life. Why?

He learned the discipline of being thankful. Thankful the Lord had set him free from sin, that the Lord had delivered him from his enemies, thankful that he woke up in the morning, that he had rice in his bowl and occasionally an extra half of an egg along with it. At times, I could see the pain in his eyes; it's hard to erase the effects of prolonged trauma that occurred over several years. But in that pain, he rejoiced. I learned much from that brother in Christ and look forward to the day in Heaven when I can once again see him face to face as I have no idea where he resettled. I want to shake his hand and thank him for modeling this discipline.

While I am Canadian and celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving in early October, I know that many of my readers are American and are celebrating Thanksgiving next month. I pray you have a blessed time of family, fellowship and fun. Might I issue a challenge for us all? Let's pledge not to just give thanks over the one weekend that we call Thanksgiving but let us determine to live a life of thanks. Thanks-Living, I suppose you can call it. A Thanks-living lifestyle searches and finds the many blessings in our lives on a daily basis. If Duan and the millions of persecuted Christians around the world can have that thanks-living deep in their spirits, then we as Western Christians have absolutely no excuse not to give thanks in ALL things.

Think of it as something you need to learn how to do in the same way you learned to tie a shoe or ride a bike. It only comes with practice, with concentration and determination at first. You might falter and want to give up. But press in. Soon, it will be as natural as it now for you to tie your shoes in the morning. It won't seem foreign or fake, it'll become routine and as a part of you as breathing. If you learn the art of thanks-living, you'll be guarding your heart against hardness.

I Thessalonians 5:18
In everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Why did the writer of the letter to the Thessalonians urge us to give thanks? Everything God wills for us through his Son is for our benefit and for our good. He knew the fruits that would carry through in our lives once we got a hold of this key.

© 2004, 2008 Katherine Walden
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Christian Quotes on Gratitude

If I Was Never Born

If I was never born
I would never be able to see Jesus' face
If I was never born,
I would never be in God's grace
If I was never born
There would never be beautiful poems to write
If I was never born.
The people I try to help
Would be out of my sight
I forgive those who give me pain and hurt
They try to crush my spirit, but it does not work
Some are cruel, some do not care
They try to bring me to the bottom of despair

But, The Lord, my God, is on my side
I stay strong, He makes me wise
If I was never born
The earth could not be beautiful at dawn
The butterfly, I love so much
May not be there at all

I would not smell the flowers, or fly into the air
I could never be an angel
Because, I was never there
The loved ones I touched
And those who feel unloved
Would never have known me
And with my heart and soul
Never have been touched

If I was never born,
No laughter would I know
I could not see the raindrops fall
Or watch nature grows
I would never have met my mother
Who would have been unhappy to the end

I would never have known my sister,
She would have no one to confide in
And I would have no joy, bubbling from within
If I was never born,
Without life, there is no eternity
I would never have been, God knew
So He gave me my beginning

If I was never born,
I would not know how to pray to The Lord above
Thank you, Dear Jesus, for keeping me in your heart
You never forgot me
There is a light from you around my head
"Dear Child" My blood for you I shed

© 2006 Linda Ann Henry
sailingdoves@hotmail.com

You must email the author to gain permission to use this article before using or copying it in any media format including email, blog, print or electronic form.

© 2006 Linda Ann Henry
sailingdoves@hotmail.com

You must email the author to gain permission to use this article before using or copying it in any media format including email, blog, print or electronic form.

Happy Friend

Thank you Lord that you’ve caused us to see
What is the truth and what is to be
It is all exposed to those who believe
Those who open the hearts to you to receive
Thank you Lord that you guide our way
That you’re there beside us day by day
That you cover us… you spread out your wings
That you warn us of danger that the enemy brings
We don’t need to fear when we pressed close to your heart
We don’t need to leave we don’t need to part
We just need to rest to rest in you
Be surrounded by love your love so true
You must email the author to gain permission to use this article before using or copying it in any media format including email, blog, print or electronic form.

© Lyn McSweeney

You must email the author to gain permission to use this article before using or copying it in any media format including email, blog, print or electronic form.

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