Moaning or Thanking?

   As I grow older I find that there are a lot of things that I cannot do anymore, or maybe if I can still do these, I am not quite as proficient at them. Golf from yesterday's post is one of them, but I was reminded this morning, as I read in Psalm 26, that there is also a blessing that can offset these physical problems, and it is not just related to age, it is an important attitude of life in general. The verse reads:

   "I wash my hands in innocence
and go around your altar, O Lord, proclaiming thanksgiving aloud,
and telling all your wondrous deeds."

   That blessing is thanksgiving. If I watch the news on TV or read it on the internet, it is easy to be discouraged with the situation around me. If I focus on my inabilities, it is easy to get lost in the "woe is me" syndrome. But it is in thanksgiving that I find hope.

   As I sat last night, going through some old slides from a few years back, I came across this picture:

 

   This was a family photo, with all 15 of us in the picture, but I could not place where we were. I knew the year it was taken, and knew it must have been summer of that year, but I could not remember the situation. Since we all live in different area codes, I knew it had to be a special event that brought us all together. but what?

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  So I did the logical thing, I emailed my 3 kids and their spouses and asked what was going on in the shot. And the answer came back, our 50th anniversary at the Great Wolf Lodge in Jamestown, VA.

   Why all the talking about an old photo? Because it made me thankful, yet again, of the blessing of family, and how much my life is enriched by each one in mine, and thankfulness is much better than moaning.