A thankful heart is a happy heart. My heart is happy because I am THANKFUL

As I was dropping off my older boys at school today, their PE teacher stopped me.....this isn't abnormal, we talk with her almost every day while walking to class.....about tying shoes, about funny kids, about whatever pops in our heads. But today, she said something that really spoke to my heart. She said to me as she was touching her heart, " Your boys.....your boys, they are the sweetest things! They really touch my heart!"  I LOVE hearing those words......and it got me to use that old, sappy brain 'o' mine yet again....... To tell you all a mushy little story! :) Don't you just love when I do that?

So, lately I've been just THANKFUL. Thankful especially for those boys "that touch my heart" SO SO deeply that it makes me emotional thinking about how thankful I am for them. THANKFUL that those boys" touch other peoples hearts" with their sweet smiles, silly laughs and happy words. THANKFUL for all that we have and all that we are blessed with. Our home, our marriage, my husband, our health, Shane's job and not just his "job"......a job that he loves, our faith, our family, our extended family, this beautiful earth, those rains that we love so much, all the beauty we see with our eyes and hear with our ears. We are just SO blessed......so, SO, SO blessed. So thankful that it just brings me to tears. I read somewhere that a thankful heart is a happy heart. Those words could not be more true. My heart is happy because I am thankful. Thankful for EVERY LITTLE THING.........and then I read this little post here:


"Genuine thankfulness is inextricably bound up with trust. We will never truly thank God until we first truly trust Him. We will not be grateful to God for all that we have until we first recognize that we’re dependent on Him for all that we have.

By nature, we’re not trusting creatures. We’re creatures of necessity. We trust God when we’re forced to trust Him because our problems go beyond our abilities. The rest of the time, we get along just fine by ourselves. If we can solve the problem by ourselves, we don’t resort to prayer and trusting God, because we don’t need to trust Him. But it’s only when we come to the end of ourselves and cast ourselves in total dependence on the Lord that we begin to experience genuine praise and thanksgiving.

Psalm 33 was written to those addressed as “righteous ones” and “the upright” (v. 1). That is, it is written to those who know God personally and who are seeking to please Him by living obedient lives. But even these people need to be exhorted to “sing for joy in the Lord” (v. 1), to “give thanks to the Lord” and “sing praises to Him” (v. 2). The psalm tells us that…

 

 

The key to a thankful, worshiping heart is to rely completely on the Lord."

Written by: Steven J. Cole

"The key to a thankful, worshiping heart is to rely completely on the Lord" keep saying it until it sinks in......... It took me 30 years to fully put my trust in God. 30 years. Yes, I've always been religious. Yes, I've always been to church....and Yes, in my life I thought I was thankful for things. I also thought I had already put my trust in God when I asked him to be in my heart forever....... A few years ago while at church on Good Friday service, our pastor asked us to write down something on a paper that was holding back our full devotion and relationship with God. He then asked us to walk up and place our paper, along with this thing that was holding us back into the basket. He asked us to completely trust in God and to let all those things that may be holding us back in our relationship with God go. Just let it go he said, trust completely in Him. You know what my paper said? Trust in God. I had a problem in trusting in God for everything. I couldn't just completely let go and give my life, my trust, my everything to God. So that day, I did. I gave ALL my trust to God. I let God rule my life, I let God do my worrying. He is the leader of our family. He is the answerer of our prayers. He is who we go to for our everything. I will trust completely in HIM.  That same year, I got baptized in the Lewisville River at the same time as my Dad. My brother, my Dad and my sister in law's father (the pastor who married me and Shane) dunked me in the river. That was one of the best days of my life. Not only because I will always remember that I got baptized with my Dad by my brother with most of my family watching........but because I let it ALL go. I let the water wash it all away.

I was re-born with this thankful heart. This thankful heart that has me in tears more often than I'd like to admit. This thankful heart that is relying completely on Him. This thankful heart that I thought I knew for 30 years. This thankful heart that I thought loved God completely. This thankful heart that I thought had an amazing relationship with God. I'm thankful that I figured it out......after 30 years.

 

"The key to a thankful, worshiping heart is to rely completely on the Lord."

 

This truly, truly thankful heart will always rely completely on the Lord. And once you figure it out and feel the closeness you get with God when you completely let go and trust in Him, You'll never go back to your old thankful heart. The only problem with this "new heart" is that it gets weepy all too often when you start thinking about all those things He blesses us with each day.