Today I'm Thankful For...

Today I am thankful for my wonderful parents! In class with Dr. Grunzke we are going over divorce and how society feels about it. I keep being reminded about how blessed I am! I thank God daily for my parents. They have watched over me and guided me so well during the past 21 years. They have encouraged me to do the things that I should and corrected me when needed. I think about all of the friends that I know who have not been so blessed with such a good home life and who don't have parents that care enough about them to lead them in the right direction. There are so many families that are broken with single parents trying so hard to raise their kids without the support of another spouse. Parenting is hard work. That is why God had planed for there to be two people involved in the raising of a child.

My Dad

I think about Deuteronomy 11:18-19, and how God wanted His people to always be talking about His commandments to their children. I'm so thankful that I had parents who took this verse to heart. We would talk in the car after church about the lesson that morning, we would talk about God at the dinner table, then there are the memories of sometimes, when my dad would come home from work in the early morning hours I would go to him and talk about Biblical concepts that i was struggling with (the early hours were his best thinking hours when I was little). Growing up like this made us, as children, have lots of questions all the time. We became very curious about the God's word and what it meant to us. I remember feeling overwhelmed sometimes by the knowledge that my dad had about the Bible. He didn't always have an answer right off, but we knew that before the week was out he would have studied his hardest to find one for us. And yet, we were never told that we had to take his word for any of it. We were told that we had to come to know the answers through study ourselves in order to be grounded in our faith.
I remember the night I went to talk to my dad about being baptized. We had a long talk that night about what being a Christian would mean, Lord willing I hope to never forget that night. My Dad was the one who baptized me. How fitting that is, to help bring a child into this world and then be the one to help them be born again in Christ. I would not have had it any other way.
While I have been at school I have had your normal hardships and blessings come my way, and my dad is still the person that i call when i need some good sound spiritual advice. He is very honest and upfront, so he tends to think logically, which is the way that I like to work through things. I think I became that way because of him. In many ways, without getting in the way of the respectful relationship that I should have for my parents, my Dad is one of my best friends.

  My Mom

 My mom was very good at filling our lives with God as well. She we would take a book out of the bible each semester and we would copy it for our handwriting class. I have had a very different relationship with my mom then most daughters have had. I have been blessed with a relationship where I can tell my mom anything. There is not much that I go through or think about that my mom does not know.
I had a really rough semester a while back and my mom made a trip all the way out to Alabama just to take care of me and heal my "homesickness." That was a long drive for her to make just for an "I miss you visit" but she made it! I love her so much for being there for me. My mom is so protective of her children. She would cry when we were hurt right along with us as she patched us up. When our hearts were broken so was hers ( She is still that way now).
My mom has the most compassionate heart that I know of. She is quick to forgive, and just love. Whenever there is something that can be done for someone she is always there to step up. She has been a wonderful example to me when it comes to teaching. I got my love of teaching little ones from her. She is so good at it. I hope one day Lord willing to be half as talented as she is at it.