Lessons in thankfulness and a cupful of Spring :-)

I've been throwing some big tantrums at God in the past few days over the fact He gave me a special needs child. Thursday in particular was a shocker after Jaden had 4 huge meltdowns in 1 day (1 at someone else's house which is always fun). When Brett got home I took myself out to the shops alone, bought a coffee at Gloria Jeans and also treated myself to a scrapbooking magazine (haven't bought one in years) and sat down and had some much needed me time. The trouble is that coffee and magazines don't fix a grumpy attitude and on the way home I couldn't stop crying. I got home and dumped on Brett about how crappy my life was because I don't get 5 minutes to myself and am sick of being stuck in a job that God gave me where I am treated like crap and not appreciated. He listened and prayed for me and then I went to sleep. ( I have such a wonderful hubby who knew I just needed to have my vent and that God would sort me out later).

I woke up on Friday and felt a real yearning to just spend some time with God and sort out my foul attitude, I realised I was giving God the same treatment that I was whingeing about my son giving me. The depth of God's love and grace to his ungrateful, disobedient, whingeing children is amazing and I'm so glad that he extends it to me, even when I am so bad sometimes at extending it to my own children. As usual the verses I read were just what I needed and then I read Donna's blog about Lot's wife looking back and got another much needed kick up the pants, then I flipped over my little verse thing for the day and it was Jer29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you" declares the Lord.. plans to give you a hope and a future". I know He is good and I can't believe how often he needs to remind my wayward heart of that.

As part of Jaden's schoolwork that day I decided we needed to focus on how blessed we really are and we got out the letters and pictures from our sponsor kids and read through them and listed all the simple things that they were thankful for, like enough food to eat, the chance to go to school, medicine when they're sick etc and then we made our own lists, so very humbling!!!! How dare I complain about anything when these four amazing children praise Jesus for the blessings in their live no matter how small and simple. We then put up our world map with arrows from the kids photos to the countries they come from and it's right in the middle of our loungeroom wall to remind us how blessed we are, how thankful we need to be and to also remember to pray for these precious ones!!!

To top the day off I then went outside and saw such beuaty blooming in my own front yard and decided to bring a cupful of it inside to my table where I could gaze on the beauty of God's cretaion blooming in Spring and ask for him to keep pruning my own heart so that I can bloom beautifully where I am planted too :-)

We didn't even know these Irises were beside our driveway until they popped up almost overnight. We found jonquils out the back too, gotta love being blessed by someone else's planting efforts. How nice to know that all during winter such beauty was just waiting to burst forth!

I love lavender and it grows all along the front of my house. I have it all underneath our bedroom window and love the scent that wafts in if I open the windows!