Thankful Heart
Thankful Heart
This week we celebrate Thanksgiving! This for me is a time of restoration, love, promises fulfilled, and blessings! I have a thankful heart because all of what God has done for me!! My parents divorced when I was 10 and it changed everything for me… my memory of thanksgiving when they separated was one that hurt me for many years. I loved both of my parents and wanted all of us to be together. Years later God brought me my future husband at Thanksgiving.
One Snowy Night
The night of our outreach, “A Feast Fit For A King,” my now husband Brent, asked me to go to dinner, (we hadn’t eaten all day), and then we had our “accidental first date!” After dinner he asked me to take a walk on the canals hence the “accidental date,” and as we started to walk down the stairs to the canals, it started to snow!! It was a beautiful beginning to our marriage journey! One that I will never forget!
Restoration
God healed in me many wounds of rejection, feeling empty, and alone when He brought me my husband. When I received the Holy Ghost 4 years prior, God had started a healing work in my emotions, making me feel safe and loved. My dad and I became very close, as I was living with him and my step-mom and going to church with them. He was preparing me for my husband, He was restoring me! I was starting to feel whole.
God Made Me Whole
God used all of my past hurts, wounds, and failures to make me into who He wanted me to be. He made me whole, and through this process, helped me to be ready for marriage. We go through the same process when we are born again, and sanctified.. we are being prepared to be a bride for Christ. He is making us whole, so we can love others, and be ready for that great catching away! That great banquet.
The Marriage Supper
Thanksgiving always reminds me of the marriage supper, when we will sit in heavenly places, and enter into the great banquet with Jesus. When I was going through one of the toughest times of my life, God laid on my heart to have a banquet, a feast fit for a king! I had been hurt at a factory where I worked and as i could barely walk, fighting for my rights, and being persecuted for the name of Jesus, I listened to a sermon on Job. God spoke to my heart to reach out, to give, and to serve out of my pain. So, the first one I put on we served about 20 people in the small town of Crawfordsville, IN, the next year, as I thanked God for what He did, he increased it 100 fold. I had a thankful heart even in small beginnings.
Thankful For My Pain
Out of my pain I gained a thankful heart. I didn’t allow my trial to separate me from God, I allowed God to use it for His glory! I felt so alone, tired, worn out, and felt like I was broken. When I felt like I was at my breaking point a year later, I was at Calvary Tabernacle in Indianapolis, IN, and after a service was out with some friends at steak-n-shake. A man who that I didn’t know, that was related to my friends, came up to me and gave me a word. He said, “God told me to tell you in the next 30 days everything is going to change.” I accepted the word even though I felt very worn down and exhausted.
Rhema Word
In the next 30 days, I was able to do the feast fit for a king, (all of it happened miraculously in 2 weeks time,) I met my husband, and $11,000 of back payments had been paid to me for my injury. I had been living by faith, with little to no money, getting assistance, and God using others to bless me, some that didn’t know me. During the time of my pain and suffering God was shaping me, strengthening me, and putting me on the potters wheel so I could be used for His glory.. He gave me hope in my distress, and helped me to be thankful for all that would come!
Scriptures
Monday: 1 Chronicles 16:8 says, “Give thanks unto the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people.” Share what God has done with a thankful heart!! He is so good!!
Tuesday: Colossians 3:24 says, “Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.” We were serving the Lord together even before marriage and continued after, we have an inheritance!! Pray that you and your husband can serve God together.
Wednesday: 2 Corinthians 4:17 says, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a for more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;” All that we go through in this life is preparing us for greater things! Praying today we see the eternal instead of just the temporal.
Thursday: Luke 8:50 says, “But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole.” God teaches us over and over He can make us whole. Praying today for wholeness in you and your marriages!
Friday: Zechariah 4:10 says, “For who hath despised the day of small things?” What is God doing right now that seems small? Pray and trust him for miracles 100 fold!!
Saturday: Romans 8:18 says, For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” Whatever you are going through, know God will use it and pray for a thankful heart for it!!
Sunday: Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” God has a plan bigger than you can imagine!! Just trust Him through the process and hang on to His word.
Prayer
Our prayer for you this week is that you look at every circumstance and trial, whether good or bad and have a thankful heart. If I would have given up, I would have missed my miracles!!! I would have missed the blessing of meeting my husband, seeing lives changed, and restoration! Thank the Lord for your marriage this week, for your family, for your church, and see the good in all God is doing! Happy Thanksgiving!!!
Contact
Please feel free to contact us at janene@happilyevermarried.org and read and share more blog posts at http://happilevermarried.org Thank you for investing in your marriage and have a happily ever married!!
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