A Thankful Woman's Book of Blessings

My friend has a wonderful way for others to share and show how God has blessed them during their week.  Every Wednesday, you can go to her site at Judy's blog and write five things you are thankful for that have recently occurred in your life.  So often, we can think we are not making good progress.  It is good to get into the habit of writing down some of the things that we have done so that our value in the eyes of God is reinforced and lived out in our perceptions about ourselves.  Here are five of the things I am thankful for this past week:

1)  We finally finished making 12 dozen Christmas cookies for our homeschool co-ops Christmas party today.  It was a bit time consuming but well worth it.  Every mom will have a dozen cookies for one person.  My kids will love having all these 'cookie choices' during the Christmas season.  My college age sons - I'm sure - will gobble some of them up!

2)  We thankfully cut down and put up our Christmas tree this past weekend.  It is all decorated and my toddler loves to look at the ornaments.  Sometimes, we say our prayers around the lit up tree remembering that Jesus is 'the Light of the World.'

3)  I was able to double the recipe I made for my families dinner last night.  This will allow me to bring an extra dish to the Christmas party.  There will be 26 hungry children there.

4)  Our family attended Christmas Mass at my daughters high school on Gaudette Sunday.  It is really an effort to make the 40 minute drive at times.  We were able to attend and have fellowship with all the wonderful faculty and parents at this Catholic school.

5)  Our Jesse Tree is in full swing now and our Advent Wreath is out.  We light the candles and say prayers every night before dinner.  I am reading devotions from Benedict Groeschels book "Behold, He Comes."  The meditations are very good, but we have to remember that being a psychologist - Fr. Groeschel has seen alot of troubled people.  Sometimes this comes through in his writing.  It is good though because it is a sad fact that evil does exist in our world.  He usually has a remedy, through knowing Christ, to combat the darkness.