Happy Thanksgiving

   Greetings to you in the name of Jesus Christ.  Happy Thanksgiving.  I preach tonight at our Thanksgiving Eve service at 6:30.  Then drive six and a half hours to mom and dads.  The whole family is going to be there.  All of us getting together is happening less and less now that we are all working adults living in Colorado, Florida, Nebraska, and Minnesota.  So I am very excited to see the boys and Ava.  Oh, and the rest of the family too!  It is a short trip for me driving down tonight and coming back Friday night, but worth it to see the family.
    We have been getting lots of snow here.  We were spoiled with such a long, nice fall almost all the way through November.  But now that winter is here, it is coming at full speed.  I love the snow and have thoroughly enjoyed tracking the deer movement through the fresh snow in my yard.  However, this is the first Minnesota winter where I actually have to shovel snow.  Last year, I had a heated garage and the plowing was always done for me at the apartment.  I have had to shovel the drive way twice this year and it is a decently long driveway.  However, it is also a good workout to shovel it.  The chickens don't like the snow very much; although, they are getting better about going outside even in the cold.  They finally laid their first two eggs!  Now I just have to get them trained to lay the eggs in the nesting boxes instead of on the ground.  Silly chickens.
     Well, as Thanksgiving is tomorrow and my birthday is Friday, I most certainly have an abundance of things to be thankful for.  I never dreamed that as I turned 28, I would own 17.5 acres of woods with a house, garage, and chickens, my own tractor, a car and a truck, and be blesses with lots of other material possessions.  I am so thankful for the career I have as an ordained minister at an amazing congregation with an awesome staff to work with.  I am so thankful that I am alive and healthy after some of the craziness of this year.  I will take a wicked scar on my arm being the worst thing left from a week in the hospital, nothing to show for falling off a roof, and making it safely through another hunting season.  God has blessed me every day for 28 years, and I am so content with where my life is, that the next two days will be a time of reflection and giving thanks to God.
    I pray you are just as content with your life, and can see how abundantly God has blessed you no matter where your life is at as well. Happy Thanksgiving to you all.