A Debt Of Gratitude - A Heart Like His

When the residents of Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, all their brae men set out, journeyed all night, and retrieved the boy of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan (1 Samuel 31: 11-12)

Think of some of the specific kindnesses sown you and the sacrifices made by the people in your life.  How could you express your thanks to them over the next few days? 

GOD has put many people in my life who have helped me in large and small ways.  Looking back I may not have acknowledge the sacrifices they made for me. It’s important to give credit to other people for our successes. In the next few days I will call those who have been there for me by calling them just to say thank you and letting them know that I appreciate the things they did for me. 

What barriers or distractions need to come down in your life so that you can easily keep your responses of gratitude flowing?

I suppose my biggest barrier is the fact that like many people I tend to dwell on the negative.  This negative bias tends to set my focus on the problems, irritations, and injustices in my life rather than focusing on being grateful for the events or people in our lives that are working and we feel good about.

Sometimes the difficult times in your life can blind you to the things for which you should be grateful.  It is important to be grateful to everyone. I need to be grateful to those who have helped, to those who have hindered as well as to those who have been indifferent. Be grateful to all, because these individuals helped shape the person I have become.  

Day Seven of Forty Days of Gratitude

This morning I woke up around 2:00 feeling as though someone was pressing down on my chest. I am claustrophobic and in my dream I had been placed in a coffin and buried but I was alive and I Was trying desperately to get out. Just as I opened my eyes I wondered if I shouldn't have been cremated so my soul could be set free.

I glanced around the room that seemed to be bathed in moonlight. It was almost light enough to read by and I stared at the ceiling thankful that it had been just a dream. I turned to look over at my husband who was snoring almost in unison with our dog Blitz. I then curled up next to him and tried to go back to sleep.

Unfortunately for me, sleep just wouldn't come. Finally around 3:30 AM I decided to stop fighting it and go downstairs.

I began entering sweepstakes and writing blog posts for Thrifty Maven when I found this amazing story of a woman who had been pronounced brain dead. Amazingly before they began harvesting her organs they discovered that she was very much alive.

This story is so amazing I want to share it with you.



I didn't make the connection with my dream but when I told my husband about it he asked me if I had heard about this story the night before but I hadn't. I felt the coincidence was important enough to document it.

After receiving a $29 Amazon gift card I began spending it on some music downloads. I'm making a Halloween music CD so I bought the following songs for that: A Nightmare On My Street By: DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, They're Coming To Take Me Away Ha! Haa!! By: Napoleon's Ghost, Spooky by: Atlanta Rhythm Section,

I also bought some favorites from back in the 70's and early 80's like: So Into You by Atlanta Rhythm Section, Imaginary Lover By: Atlanta Rhythm Section, I'm Not Gonna Let It Bother Me Tonight By: Atlanta Rhythm Section , Whatcha Gonna Do? By: Pablo Cruise, and Don't Want To Live Without It By: Pablo Cruise

I love music and I am grateful for being able to finally be able to get these songs again.

We won 90 more MyCokerewards from the McDonald's Monopoly game and that's certainly something to be grateful for.

The thing I am most grateful for today is my health. Now that might seem odd considering I didn't get enough sleep and that made me very drowsy and sick early on in the day. I was finally able to take a nap after having some Mac & Cheese for lunch. I slept for about two hours and when I woke up I felt great. I realize that some people are dealing with real illness and they can't just nap off the effects like I was able to do. So for that I truly am grateful for my health.

Gratitude To The Second Power

Lately my dog has taken to waking me up at 3:30 or so in the morning. This morning I was able to sleep in to 5::15 am. That alone should be a gratitude moment.

I began the day with a Starbucks Green Tea Latte and some oatmeal. I was able to get some sweeps entered as well as promote my blog before I had to head out the door.

Today should be listed as a bad day. Not a horrible day but a day with bad news that was doubled. It began with finding out that the server was done. The school's Internet servers had all gone down because an upstairs water fountain had busted and water had run down into the building taking the server out of commission. This meant that the kids did not have access to the Internet which means that they couldn't do their scheduled assignment in most of the classes. Thank goodness I had a Plan B.

I am looking upon this as a gratitude moment because I was prepared with a relevant Plan B and not some word search.

Perhaps I could have looked upon the fact that there were Otis Spunkmeyer cookies on a huge tray in the front office. I took a bunch to distribute to my department coworkers as well as some for my Sixth Period. I used the cookies to help get them to participate in today's activity about Business Organizations.

Maybe I should look upon the fact that the Internet wasn't working because I was actually able to discover a whole source of projects for use in Entrepreneurial Ventures that I never used before.

I had gone to the Georgia Real Workshop about five years ago and they had lots of great projects to use in my classroom. I thought I had been accessing all of them and already used some of the best ones already. Little did I know there was this whole other section and when I found it I was thrilled. So I would say that I was grateful that I found that section. Can you believe that section has been there that long and I never realized it?

By the end of the day I was anxious to leave but I knew I had a parent conference. This was going to be a good one because the boy was making an A in my class so I figured my time would be quick.

I was just getting ready to head down the hall when I talked to Ms. N. She asked where I was going and I told her that I was headed over to see the parent. She asked if I would be seeing any other parents. I asked why and that's when she told me that we had to stay until 5:30PM. That blind-sided me. She said this was the parent-teacher conference night.

Great. Just great. That threw me. I could have got upset but I tried to focus on the positive. I decided to go out to the car and retrieve a book I was reading.

While I certainly would have loved to work on lesson plans, I was grateful for the chance to read a book. The book I was reading is about Fark which is a really great site for stupid news junkies like myself. I wish I'd known about it a long time ago. I read about four chapters while I waited for parents to come to my classroom. I had a grand total of two. Yippee!!!

Finally, when I got home from work I discovered a FedEx package that contained my glasses. I had sent off the frames to have new lenses put in them for a review. The lenses were supposed to be lightweight and believe me they were.

Here is my chance though to show how stupid I can truly be. You see I noticed that there was those blue dots on the lenses that optometrists put on for measurement purposes. I was so anxious to see how they felt and see how they turned out I didn't try wiping them clean. Instead I plunked them right on and picked up an envelope from the table to read the return address.

The lenses seemed really fuzzy and I removed it to rub my eyes and then replaced them back on my face. I thought to myself, these glasses really need to be cleaned because this is bad. I took them back off to clean them and that's when I noticed that there was a thin coat of plastic on the lenses t protect the lenses. When I removed the plastic of course the glasses turned out to be just fine. So I'm really grateful to have another pair of glasses.

So in spite of all the bad things that happened I still found some things to be grateful for.