It's that Giving Thanks time of year

I have so much to be thankful for this year. I always have things to be thankful for but this year is an extra special year to me. I got my past back. Sound strange? It's not.

You see 8 years ago, I walked away from my past, there were haunts there I didn't want to face and so I learned to live in denial and do my best to not bring it back up. Problem... dreams, I lived with nightmares and dreams that pushed me to my limits some days mentally.

This summer God did what I knew He could do but didn't know if He cared too and he brought judgement on situations from the past and in doing so He broke down walls that hadn't been passed through in 8 years.

I walked into my old church in October for the first time in almost 8 years. It was very scary but once inside it was so comforting. To sit there and take it all in, to truly enjoy a place I had given everything to see it happen. I did thank God for making it all possible. I hate what had to happen but I'm thankful to be able to walk in that building and not be scared of what will happen to me.

I also learned in the course of that same situation why God moved us from there. Oh, I know all the actual "knowledge" reasons, but more than that I learned in my heart why I made that decision for myself. I didn't have to move with my family but I knew I had to follow God's leading. It hurt and I don't guess the hurt ever leaves, you learn to forgive but the emotional trauma stays. That kind of hurt shapes you mentally and emotionally forever, I guess.

I want to say I thank God for rescuing me. If I hadn't done what I had to do, I would have regrets I wouldn't be able to live with. I didn't know it then but I do now and I'm very thankful that God protected me. I don't know why He did but He did. It has seemed that every dream and every desire was destroyed but I think I can see that it is slowly beginning to regroup. God is slowly picking up the pieces of my life and putting them together again. How do you not thank God for that??

I'm also thankful that Landon arrived healthy and handsome. Tiffany is good and our family is happy and healthy. Health is relative. We have healthy relationships and that is of hte upmost importance.

Overall it has been a good year. That isn't to say life is perfect but life is good. God is good. Lately in thanking Him I've begun to wonder. I can't remember if it was Bro. Stringfellow or Bro. Pixler that said in a recent sermon that if you have a dream hold on to it. He said sometimes we go through hard times in order that when our dream is a reality we will be what God needs us to be, that is in my own words. He said sometimes God takes us on a journey to shape us and put things in us and take some thing out of us. All in all when we get back to where we started we are changed. I think about the dreams I've always thought were just shattered pieces on the ground. I picked them up but it has just been a pile of pieces that I couldn't fit together. It makes me stop and wonder, am I going full circle???

Thanks!!!!!!