Say THANKS!

Okay, I admit that I’m jumping the gun a bit.

May 7th seems to be the official day to post our perspectives on this past month’s blogging bonanza, and X and Z still loom ominously on the horizon, suggesting that my opinion of this challenging experience may still change before the alphabet comes to an end. But the subject for T for me is a no-brainer. It’s simply time to say thanks.

I am ever so grateful that I stumbled across the A to Z host page in my limited ventures into the blogging world in the months before The Challenge officially began. The fire of my passion for writing had been slowly burning itself out, a change in my work situation leaving me with less time and energy to devote to it and few ideas on how to stoke the flames to get it back. Suddenly this new log was thrown on the fire…and surprisingly, it caught. Fueled by the need to prepare and fanned by the excitement of pre-challenge posts on how to do so, by April 1st the fire was burning brightly once more.  In the past weeks I’ve discovered ways to keep it from burning down to just embers ever again.

I’m reminded of the story in the Bible of the ten lepers who called out to Jesus for healing from a village He was traveling through. He told them to go show themselves to the priest, standard procedure for those who had been healed and wished to return to the society from which they’d been banned. And it was while they were in the process of going, even yet in their unclean state, that they suddenly found themselves healed before they arrived. It’s amazing to me, as it was to Jesus, apparently, that just one out of the ten turned back to thank Him for the life-changing event.

It’s important to me that I not wait till I get to where I’m going to go back and express gratitude. A friend approached me recently with a worry she wanted to talk to me about. As we discussed her options I told her to simply give the matter to God and to thank Him for handling it for her. She looked at me a little funny, and said, “Thank Him now? Don’t I wait until He answers?” I explained to her that it’s a Kingdom principle that you thank God for giving you the things you ask for before you receive them, expressing your belief that the work will be accomplished before you actually see the results. It’s faith that moves the hand of God, as Jesus told the lone leper at the end of the Bible passage (Luke 17:19).

The end of the alphabet, however yet challenging, is clearly in sight. I know I’m going to reach it, however I don’t want to get there without first going back and expressing my appreciation to the ones who set me off on the road to recovery in the first place. To the co-hosts of the A to Z Blogging Challenge, I salute you, and say thanks!

 “Be careful for nothing, but in all things, through prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of god, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
(Philippians 4:6 KJV, emphasis mine)