I heard this recently – ‘What if when you got up every morning, all you had was what you had thanked God for the day before?’  That really resonated in my mind and heart, because not only am I not nearly as thankful as I need to be, but often I even forget to thank my Heavenly Father for all that I have asked Him.   And not only that, but I often grumble over my circumstances and what I do have.   As I look around me in both Europe and the States, on the whole I see a less than thankful people.  So many seem to be dissatisfied with what they have, or their lot in life.

This is my birthday month!   I was blessed to have loving parents and many, many happy birthdays growing up.  We could always choose what we wanted for our birthday meal, and since I was born in the hot, dog-days of August, my favorite place to go to celebrate was to Musquash Lake for a cook-out.  It was just two or three miles from our humble little home in Codyville, ME, and getting to swim and splash in the cool lake was ‘the cherry on the (birthday) cake’.  ????

As I write this post from Romania, I have to tell you that there is something a little strange about not being in my own country on the Fourth of July.  I experienced this back in 2000 when I worked with Gujarati Indians in Loughborough, England.  It just felt odd.  And it does this time around, too. 

The Bible is full of examples of fathers.  Good ones, not so good ones, ones filled with wisdom, ones who ‘struggled’ with wisdom, and plenty of other types.  No matter who our father is (was) Ephesians 6.2 tells us to honor our father (and mother) – and it was also the first commandment with a promise.  It was easy to honor my father.  I was one who was blessed to have a ‘good one’ – and one who was filled with wisdom.

Everyone thinks that their dog is the ‘best’. But I, truly, had the best dog – for about 11 years. He was a beautiful smooth-haired Chow-Chow, and his name was Johann Sebastian Bachie. My boys were quite taken a-back by his name, but since they couldn’t seem to come up with anything else, Bachie, it was.