{Thanksgiving: not because I feel like it but because I should}

So many good things in my life, things I am grateful for. But everything good here holds a seed of complication. Does the seed sprout because my character waters it, nourishes it?

I hate that I am finally getting around to writing a complete (if brief) post only now that I am upset. But this is my confession, my record of where I am, my bare heart, turning toward the One Who made it. "Why are you so downcast, o my soul? I will yet praise Him, my Savior, my King."

So many good things in my life. Thank You, Lord, for sunshine, for safety, for fresh food, for garlic and green pepper and lentils and onions. Thank You for the crashing waves, the green and blue water roaring shoreward from so far away, the foam riding the muscles of the ocean. Thank you for the reflection of the sky on the wet sand, for the resplendent clouds mirrored on the earth, for the grit of silicon between my toes, for the stretch in my legs and in the arches of my feet as I walk along the beach. Thank You for my family walking beside me, for the joy we find in each other's company, for the love that binds us, for the plans you have for us, to prosper us and not to harm us, to give us hope and a future. Thank You for Your mercies, new every morning, for Your faithfulness when I am blown and tossed by the wind, tumbled by the waves.

Uproot the weeds in my heart. Wash me in Your water.

Let me praise You first. You are first and last in my life: be the first thought in my mind when I wake, the last before I slip into sleep; be the first shelter I run to, be the last home I return to; be Alpha and Omega, Creator and Judge; be Who You Are. The great I AM. You are God, and You are good, and You are more than enough.