Tu-Lips to Praise

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote,

"Let us resolve: First to attain the grace of silence;

second, to deem all fault-finding that does no good a sin;

third, to practice the grace and virtue of praise."

Sammy graciously stopped the van so I could take a picture of these tulips before pulling out of the street where we had dropped Carrie for her violin lesson.
Her teacher's apple tree was in bloom.

And more tulips were blooming at Faith Covenant Bible Church in the Springs where we attended several convention services a couple weeks ago.

It's easy to praise God for tulips and hyacinths and pretty little girls.

It's not always easy to praise Him for mud and musty smells and little girls who bug the daylights out of her bigger brothers, for vehicle problems and computer crashes and misunderstandings and wounded spirits.

But part of living a Spirit-filled life is to give thanks in everything. 

Jonathan and I put that into practice last week as we discussed some issues we were dealing with--and how I'd read that praise can make the difference.

Together we bowed and submitted to the command to give thanks in everything.

We thanked God for all the hurt in the situation--believing that He was working it for good.

It was not easy--and tears choked me up.

It did not seem smart. It seemed silly and stupid to say, "Thank You for all this hurt."

But God did not want us to be smart. He just wanted us to be simple. 

He didn't want us to be perfect. He just wanted us to obey.

And we are watching His transforming power at work!

Again the next morning something hurtful that someone had said long ago came back to me.
I did the hard thing--I said, "Thank You, God, that they said that!"

It seemed stupid. Maybe I could have worded my thanks so it sounded smarter.
But I was just trying out this idea of actually thanking God for the difficult thing. 

I just obeyed what I had read about, and what I discovered a little later was that choosing to give thanks for the accusation enabled me to give it to the Lord--and I promptly forgot about it instead of having it gnawing at me.

I'm not saying I always do this. I don't. Something else came up that I struggled with for a while.

But I just know that there were a couple incidents in the last couple days where giving thanks worked for me. So I am sharing that and plan to share more.

Carrie celebrated her "Sweet Sixteenth" birthday.

She made a "Grandma's Cake" that had pineapple and banana in it.

Her friends Emily and Joanna came to spend overnight with her. They had a ball!

Carrie is getting ready to open a couple of her gifts.

Carrie's violin teacher gave her a bouquet of flowers from a funeral

(we had to forget the funeral part)

and we stuck a fresh sprig of lilacs from Grandma Lucas in with it.