Last night I received a text from Maura saying "thank you" for the gift we had given them at the wedding.  She said, "A real thank you note will be coming but I just wanted to say how much we love the gift you gave us."  It was a wall hanging that I found that held Nick's favorite verse (Joshua 1:9) and had the word TRUST spelled out in letters created from black and white photographs in nature.  I had written them a note explaining how important trust is in marriage and also how we wanted Nick to be a part of their marriage in some way.  Nick would have absolutely LOVED Maura!

The truth is this:  we all long to give the perfect gifts to those we love, don't we?  Something significant that will mean something for years to come.  How would we feel if our gifts were "unwanted...rejected?"   Even taken back as "not good enough?"  I know how I would feel.  Maura's little text made me smile last night.  I knew she had received my gift with the love in which it had been sent.

Well, God loves us more than we could ever possibly imagine and He chose to give us some pretty amazing gifts.

God gave us His Son.  He offers us the chance to have the GIFT of the Holy Spirit within us.  And most of all He promises the GIFT of eternal life to those who accept His other gifts.  I love how the Scriptures take such a powerful story of gift-giving and relate it in terms that we can understand even today.

I guess for me on this early Thursday morning I just wanted to share how thankful I am for all of God's gifts and I wanted to be sure that you knew they were your gifts too. 

Thanking God for these gifts is the first thing on my list of things to do on this Thankful Thursday.  I hope it's your first thing too.

John 3:16

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not

perish but have eternal life.

Acts 2:38-29

Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off-for all whom the Lord our God will call."

Romans 6:23

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Praying your day is filled with all sorts of surprising gifts,