It’s all about giving thanks!

Happily I never tire when discussing “Giving Thanks” … this is one of my favorite topics. Giving thanks assumes there is something about which to give thanks, right?

But can you give thanks?

For instance, can you give thanks when you are upset or stressed?

Give thanks when you are under financial strain?

Give thanks when the kids are misbehaving and everything goes wrong?

Ah…and that is the crux of the issue, while we know we can’t have everything going our way or extremely well 100% of the time, we may not realize that the reason we are upset many times is because of this very fact.

Life happens.

It happens when we try to homeschool. Life happens when we plan a vacation. It happens on the way to the grocery store. Life happens when the economy tanks.

So, if we realize “life” is going to happen we should be prepared for it and give thanks anyway. That is a very hard lesson I’ve learned the last several years. I’ve learned that no matter how much you plan for or save for the inevitable, in our case a very severe recession, you just can’t plan enough. Life happens! Both my husband and I are self-employed. Actually, we would have it no other way. My husband builds new construction homes, remodels, and has a home-inspection business, so you can imagine how it effected our lives. The recent economic downturn hurt the housing market severely.

So we give thanks, right? Wrong.

It wasn’t until much later when after countless hours of prayer I remembered how beneficial being thankful was in the face of hardship. Giving thanks when we didn’t understand where the next job would come from, giving thanks as we watched our retirement fund dwindle. We continued to be thankful.

And, our children watched us.

I found a picture among my presentation slides folder and made it larger and wrote the words “Give thanks to the Lord everyday” and hung it up where we could all see it. And, we did. WE gave thanks even if we didn’t want to give thanks. It helped us tremendously and little by little there was more, and more things in which to give thanks! [If you want a larger size of the picture below to print out it is here.]

I’m working on a talk for church, the topic is “Prayer: Humility before God.” I believe that thankfulness is showing the Lord that we are humble before Him and we realize He knows our plight and understands! Humility is a virtue, and we acknowledge that God is the author of all that is good! He knows what we are going through and understands. We also know that the Lord of the universe has the ability to answer our prayers or to say, “not yet,” and accepting that truth takes every ounce of our being. That is true humility…and can we continue to thank Him through that time? With His strength we can (the strength that surpasses all understanding!) Philippians 4:7

Please share ways you praise the Lord even when things are tough!

And one last thing, thankfulness is a character trait, isn’t it? We have to train ourselves to be thankful and build up that virtue muscle.

I want to recommend my Character Counts 12-Pack of Character Planners to you- they are designed for your kids!

Meet Felice Gerwitz: A Devoted Homeschool Mom, Author, Publisher, and Podcast Host

A heartfelt enthusiast for both education and faith, Felice Gerwitz has embarked on an incredible journey as a homeschooling mom, guided by her unyielding devotion to the Lord. Alongside her incredible husband and five wonderful children, Felice’s life is a testament to the beauty of balancing family, faith, and personal aspirations.

In 1986, Felice embarked on her homeschooling adventure, a path that has been colored with both triumphs and challenges. Through the years, she has amassed a wealth of experience and wisdom that she eagerly shares with the world. As the founder of Media Angels, Inc., Felice has not only embraced her role as an educator but also stepped into the shoes of an author and publisher. Her creative ventures have not only enriched her own family’s learning journey but have also inspired countless others seeking alternative educational paths.

You can continue reading her story in her very personal story, One More Child, from Media Angels, Inc.