“Bless the LORD, O my soul;
And all that is within me, bless His holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
And forget not all His benefits:
Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from destruction,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,
Who satisfies your mouth with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”  Psalm 103:1-5

Now that my 15 year-old son is recovering from Lyme Disease, I am waiting for test results to show whether or not I also have Lyme Disease.  (I had expected to know by now, but the doctors’ office lost the test results.  Grr. )  If I do have it, it will be the 7th case of it in our family in the last 4 years!  I started to have pain in my knees when my baby was about 6 weeks old, and that pain has now spread to most of my other joints.  I feel like I would expect to feel in my 70’s, not my late 30’s.  I am also dealing with extreme fatigue.  If I did not have 8 children to care for, I believe that I could sleep all day, every day!   It didn’t occur to me at first that it might be Lyme Disease, because I did not have the high fevers that were associated with the first 5 cases our family had.  However, when I saw that my 15 year-old definitely had Lyme Disease but had not had the high fevers, I realized that I needed to get checked.

It can be discouraging to go through health problems day after day, week after week, month after month, and sometimes year after year.  I am blessed in that my health problems have been relatively minor.  I have not had to deal with any of the really life-changing problems that face many people.  Still, there are times when I am discouraged by the fact that my health is not as good as I think it should be.  ;-)

My 15 year-old and I were listening to the radio in the car together Friday evening, and we got to hear the daily broadcast from Focus on the Family.  We got to hear the story of Duane Miller, who had mysteriously lost his voice and just as mysteriously regained it several years later.  In fact, we listened to a recording of him teaching on the verses quoted above when his voice was restored.  The recording was painful to listen to in the beginning, as it sounded as if he had a severe case of laryngitis.  However, as I listened to his voice being restored, I had tears rolling down my cheeks.  I encourage you to listen to the January 15th broadcast of Focus on the Family!

Duane Miller talked in the broadcast about the sovereignty of God.  He talked about how he had to come to grips with trusting the Lord for his voice.  The Lord, in His wisdom, allowed Duane to lose his voice and struggle without it for several years.  At just the right moment for His purposes, the Lord then restored Duane’s voice.  Duane has gone on to have a successful speaking ministry.

Nick Vujicic is another person who has faced tremendous obstacles in life – obstacles that would have stopped many of us.  I had seen him on YouTube before, but was sent this video again today.  Nick was born without limbs, but lives life to the fullest, encouraging others to do the same.

Whether I have Lyme Disease or not, whether I feel good or not, whether or not things are going the way I think they should, I can still praise the Lord.  And when I praise the Lord, He will help me to get through the day in a way that glorifies Him.   Regardless of how my body feels, my youth is renewed like the eagle’s when I praise the Lord!

“In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” I Thessalonians 5:18

Sometimes, the hardest thing in the world can be to be thankful for something.  It’s easy to be thankful for the blessings we receive.  It’s easy to be thankful for sunshine and good health.  It’s easy to be thankful for happy marriages and beautiful, obedient children.  It’s easy to be thankful for good jobs and sufficient money coming in.  It’s just easy to be thankful when things are going our way.

But life isn’t always about sunshine and good health.  Marriages are failing all around us and children are going their own ways.  More and more people are losing their jobs and most of us are concerned about whether or not the paycheck is going to stretch until the next one comes in.  How are we to be thankful during those times?

I fail in being thankful more times than not, but I am really trying to train myself to look for the good in things.  And I think that it is important that my children  learn to do so as well.  Sometimes it is harder than others, like when I feel that I’ve been hit with one thing after another.  Right now is one of those times.  When it seemed as if everybody was on the mend from the H1N1 virus and we were getting back on our routine, my 15 year-old son started to get sicker and sicker until he ended up in the hospital.  The baby and I spent Thanksgiving week at the hospital with him as he confounded the doctors through one test after another.   Thankfully, the doctors finally diagnosed Lyme Disease and started treatment for him, and we were all able to come home.  However, we came home to 2 other children being sick with a cold!  That cold has now passed to my husband and to me, and I’m currently feeling quite miserable with it.

Miserable as I am, I still have much for which to be thankful.  While it does seem that we’ve been hit hard with one thing after another in the last couple of months, we still have an intact family, my loving husband still has a job to go to, and the 15 year-old is getting treatment and is doing MUCH better.  Furthermore, if this bug follows the same pattern in me that it has with the others, I should be a whole lot less miserable tomorrow.  ;-)

Once I get started, there are a great number of things that I could list about which I am thankful.  Many of those include relatively minor details that the Lord has worked out in the last few weeks.  Details such as being able to stay at the hospital with my son as he went through test after test, in spite of having my 3 1/2 month-old baby with me.  We live a fair distance from the hospital, and there is no way that I could have gone back and forth to care for the baby.  The hospital policy during flu season states that only parents are allowed to visit the patients.  The fact that the baby had already had H1N1 played a big part in an exception being made for her.  The nurses even brought a crib into the room  for her!

Even though our family missed celebrating our favorite holiday together, we are looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving once we are all feeling better.  After all, who says that Thanksgiving can only be celebrated on the 4th Thursday of November?  It would be much better if every day of the year were a day of Thanksgiving!

And after having listed just a few of the things for which I am thankful, I must say that I am feeling much better.  :-)

P.S.  Just after publishing this post, I went to iTunes to try to catch up on listening to some of the podcasts that I enjoy.  The first one on my list was a Revive Our Hearts broadcast by Nancy Leigh Demoss titled “Abounding in Gratitude.”  Talk about timing!