Vickie: November 2004 Archives

A young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary. Every word out of the bird's mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity. John tried and tried to change the bird's attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to "clean up" the bird's vocabulary. Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even ruder. John, in desperation, threw up his hand, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer. For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed. Then suddenly there was total quiet. Not a peep was heard for over a minute. Fearing that he'd hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer. The parrot calmly stepped out onto John's outstretched arms and said, "I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I'm sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior." John was stunned at the change in the bird's attitude. As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the bird continued, "May I ask what the turkey did?" Happy Thanksgiving!

--------

Good morning! I want to take a short moment to say Happy Thanksgiving. I am really looking forward to this holiday. I am not, nor have been a particularly "thankful" person. I am aware of blessings and things in my life, but I typically do not exhibit an attitude of "thankfulness". This year is a little different. I am becoming really aware of what God says about thankfulness. Even this last Sunday in our message we looked at 1 Thessalonians 5:18. "In every thing give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. " I like to ask questions as I look at scripture. For example: Is there an instruction or a command? Yes, it is "in every thing give thanks". WHAT are we to give thanks for? "Every thing". WHY are we supposed to do this? "because it is the will of God in Christ Jesus". Does this apply to me? "concerning you". After asking as many questions as I can think of, I try to make application to my life. If I am to give thanks in "every thing" then I guess that means I should thank God even for the hard circumstances I find myself in. Whew! that's a tough one. Tough, yet true. The important part of this verse for me is the answer to the why. Because it is the will of God concerning ME. I can then begin to think of reasons why I should thank God for the circumstances I find myself in. This goes along with the last thoughts I shared. I can thank God because He has sovereignly chosen MY circumstances for ME. He will use them to mold and make me into the image of His Son. As I take on more of the image of His Son, others around me will begin to see His Son in me. That will bring others into contact with His Son also. As I come through hard circumstances, I will be able to help others who also find themselves in hard circumstances. They will then be able to help others, and on it goes. God knows me more than anyone else. He knows everything that I have ever been through. He knows everything I have ever done and everything others have done to me. He knows my innermost desires, my fears, my thoughts, my strengths, and my weaknesses. He alone knows what circumstances I need to reveal His Son in me. As I sat in church on Sunday my heart was very heavy because of recent events in my life. I could barely bring myself to sing. On the inside my heart was thinking, "Thank you God" for working in my life so that I will be all that you desire me to be. How reassuring it is to realize the Almighty Creator God of the Universe cares enough about me to personally orchestrate my circumstances to make me into a better person that He can use to reach the hurt and wounded world with the message of His Son. He and He alone, is my only hope. Wow, those are some real reasons to be thankful. May you too, thank Him for what He is working in YOUR life as you enter this special season of the year. Come visit me tomorrow. I will lighten your heart with a very funny Thanksgiving joke.

--------

This year has proved to keep me busier than I anticipated. I long to post at least weekly and probably could post daily. However, what is in my heart and in my mind takes time to put on paper so that my webmaster (my son) can put it on my website. I am very busy homeschooling two high schoolers this year. A marathon that we are in the midst of. I have to take math myself in order to keep up to date to help them. I am also taking my own class, "Easy Greek Translation". We are going to be able to translate the entire book of 1 John by the end of the year. How wonderful that is. It is an awesome class. It is fairly easy at this point but gets harder every week. We have homework and quizzes!! Yipes! In addition, my family is taking a course written by Bob Warren on Romans 1 through 8. I have toyed all year with James and have not been consistent. The Lord keeps bringing me back to it, so I am trying to work on that also one or two days a week. I am learning a lot about the sovereignty of God these days. As we learn and grow as a family I am ever mindful that God put us together, our specific personalities, likes/dislikes etc. so that he can use each one of us in the lives of each other. He is totally sovereign. It is awesome to understand fully that before the foundation of the world, He had a plan. That plan was/is to mold us and make us into the image of Himself/Jesus. He is at work doing that all day through our circumstances, through the people around us, through the times we live in, etc. It is exciting as I come to a fuller understanding of this. I hope you will check back when you can. I wish I could post more regularly, but it will probably be sporadic until the summer break. I am going to try adding a forum to my site. That will allow for people to interact without me actually having to post or maintain on a daily basis. It will be exciting to watch how that grows, (or not). We are going to give it a whirl. Please take a moment to look around you. The air is crisp, the leaves are beautiful and we can see God's hand in all of creation if we just take a moment to look. (Oops, I just remembered, I even forgot my recipe for the month. I'll get right on that!) God bless you!

--------