Feeling Thankful for These 10 Things!

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Thanksgiving is of course a time to reflect upon the things for which we are thankful. But like I told Faith the other day, I think we both thank God every day for the blessings he has bestowed upon us.  Each night, we read a scripture together (it's usually one Faith has memorized such as Psalm 23 or John 3:16-21). After our scripture, we recite "Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). At the end of that verse, we add our little cheer, "Do good deeds! Say nice things! Be kind!"  This little cheer is just a way to remind both of us, that's how God wants us to act every day. Then we pray, which often begins by thanking God for all that He has done for us and then we pray for others. But the other night after prayer time, I asked Faith to tell me some things she was really thankful for. I told her what I was thankful for as well.  This year, we are feeling especially thankful for ...

The Short Walk Home

Every time I take Faith to school and then bring her back home, I am reminded of how God arranged for all of our needs to be met. Last spring, we were getting concerned about where we lived and how it was going to work for getting Faith to Kindergarten in the fall.

The apartment we lived in, which was not handicapped accessible, was close to downtown and was close to Faith's preschool. During most of the time at this address, my husband stayed home to take care of our daughter. I worked in Mandan and had to take our only vehicle to work every day. This wasn't a major problem for my husband because he simply walked Faith to her therapy sessions, walked her to preschool and was able to carry her and her chair up and down the stairs of our apartment.

Things changed last November when Rob got a job, and I was able to stay home with Faith. It was more difficult for me to carry Faith up and down the stairs and because of the winter we had, it was much harder getting her to school and to therapy. Thankfully, Rob's job was nearby so he could walk to work, and I could have the car. In January, however, Faith got a new chair which I was barely able to get into our car and which I could not get up and down the stairs. I was beginning to wonder if it was a mistake that I was the one home with Faith. I began getting discouraged and wondered how a person with a heart defect was supposed to be able to care for her special needs daughter.

"Let not your heart be troubled," says the Bible. As I prayed about our situation, God was putting everything in place to make our lives more manageable. My husband and I realized we could no longer live in a place with stairs, so we began hunting for an accessible apartment. I was surprised at how many options we had. Another thing we had to keep in mind, though, was that Faith was going to be in kindergarten and we only had one vehicle, which meant we were going to have to get Rob to work and Faith to school all in one car. How was this going to work, we wondered?

God had a plan. One of our last choices on our list of places to live was a place called Ithica Heights. One day, I drove to Ithica Drive to check out the complex and when I was leaving, I drove down the street and there I saw an elementary school - practically right next door to the apartment complex! 

I called Rob and excitedly told him about my discovery. I set up an appointment to look at a two-bedroom apartment. The manager also showed me a three-bedroom apartment, which I didn't think we could afford but I wanted to look because I thought it would be great to have an extra room for an office.

A few days later, I called about the two-bedroom, and someone had put a deposit down on it which meant it was not available anymore. But the three-bedroom was. When Rob and I went to look at it again we explained to the manager that we wanted to live here because it was right next door to a school for our daughter and that we knew the school was handicapped accessible. We also explained to her we wanted the three-bedroom, but we weren't sure we could afford it. She talked to her boss, and they agreed to knock the rent down a little bit to make it more affordable and so that Faith could go to school right next door.

We moved to our new home in April. And now, every day I get to walk Faith just down the sidewalk to her new school and then I take the short walk home. God truly has provided for all of our needs, and I know He will continue to do so!

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