{"id":14052,"date":"2021-03-17T05:47:13","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T10:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=14052"},"modified":"2021-03-17T05:47:30","modified_gmt":"2021-03-17T10:47:30","slug":"the-older-i-get-the-more-thankful-i-become","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=14052","title":{"rendered":"The Older I Get \u2013 the more Thankful I Become"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

These photos say it all. The first one: 2010 \u2013 6 days after my sweetheart was promoted to heaven. We flew to Cabo San Lucas for Thanksgiving. (Papa was supposed to have been with us \u2013 but God had such a better plan for him.) Is this a photo of a grieving widow and sad grandchildren? No, it isn\u2019t. This is a happy and blessed widow and grands who knew we didn\u2019t say \u201cGood-Bye\u201d to Papa. We said \u201cSee ya\u2019 later!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yesterday, my grands cooperated with Nana to re-enact that special time. Happy Nana with big kids now. What does that picture really represent? It represents someone who is self-assured and confident to live life with no regrets. These grands don\u2019t know a sad, withdrawn, and unhappy widow. How disappointing it would have been for them to not witness everything that their Papa and I taught them for so many years. John 10:10 says: \u201cJesus came to give us abundant life and even have it more abundantly.” How could I repay Jesus with living a mournful and depressed life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yes, this photo signifies ten years older and I\u2019m so thankful to say: \u201cten years wiser\u201d. When I look around at what God, Ron and I created and all we experienced together and collected in our lives, I can assure you I can count more gratitude than complaints; more happy days than unhappy; more blessings than cursings; more victories than defeats; more joys than despair. No sad songs here. I don\u2019t even sing Elvis Presley\u2019s \u201cIt\u2019ll Be a Blue, Blue Christmas Without You!\u201d Blue? How about bright yellow sunshine with \u201cHappy Days are Here Again”!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My friend recently shared that her friend\u2019s husband passed away recently. Though she has been a Christian all her life and has witnessed the love of Jesus and even spoken of His goodness and faithfulness to her and her family, she refuses to accept joy instead of mourning. Oh, I get it. Each one copes in different ways in the passing of a loved one. I also realize there is a time for mourning and a time for dancing. From what I know \u2013 we can walk through the valley of the shadow of death with running shoes on the fast track like those moving sidewalks at the airport. Or, a slow, rocky uphill climb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m thankful I chose the fast track. I\u2019m forever grateful that my life is filled with the \u201cjoy of the Lord as my strength\u201d, the peace of God that passes all understanding, the grace of God that is sufficient for me, and the hope of God that assures me that this life is just temporary and my husband, my father, my mother, my grandparents, many friends and loved ones are in my future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve learned the best medicine for sadness is to dole out cheer, turn inward thoughts to outward joy, turn garments of heaviness to garments of praise and thanksgiving! God gives us many resources for spending our days in power rather than self-pity. The best gift we can give back to God is appreciating the abundant life He has given us that is full of joy and strength for mind, body, and soul. “Abundant life” is complete;y opposite of lack, emptiness, and dissatisfaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My expectancy is that in ten years I\u2019ll have this photo taken again and it will include some great grandchildren in the mix. In the light of eternity, ten years will fly by \u2013 and I\u2019ll be ten years closer to ever-after! And ever-after is a long, long time!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These photos say it all. The first one: 2010 \u2013 6 days after my sweetheart was promoted to heaven. We flew to Cabo San Lucas for Thanksgiving. (Papa was supposed to have been with us \u2013 but God had such a better plan for him.) Is this a photo of a grieving widow and sad…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19237,20112,16323,13132],"tags":[143,20110,20104,837,1210,11008,1769,893,13953,20111,652,20106,40,159,4987,3083,201,20102,20103,20105,20107,863,20109,20108,12741,578],"class_list":["post-14052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cabo-san-lucas","category-older-wiser","category-thankful","category-widow","tag-abundant-life","tag-best-medicine","tag-big-kids","tag-blessings","tag-blog","tag-cabo-san-lucas","tag-christian","tag-confident","tag-fast-track","tag-garments-of-praise","tag-grandchildren","tag-happy-nana","tag-inspiration","tag-john-1010","tag-joy-of-the-lord","tag-joys","tag-no-regrets","tag-older-wiser","tag-re-enact","tag-self-assured","tag-ten-years-wiser","tag-thankful","tag-time-for-dancing","tag-time-for-mourning","tag-victories","tag-widow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14052"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14055,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14052\/revisions\/14055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}