{"id":1124,"date":"2011-06-30T14:29:04","date_gmt":"2011-06-30T18:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=1124"},"modified":"2011-06-30T14:29:04","modified_gmt":"2011-06-30T18:29:04","slug":"thankful-thursday-step-by-step","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=1124","title":{"rendered":"Thankful Thursday: Step-By-Step"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Lord; Happy Thankful Thursday Father!<\/p>\n<p>Quite often Lord, when I sit down to write out my list of Blessings for the <em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Thankful Thursday<\/span><\/em> post, I have a difficult time putting them in writing.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that I don\u2019t feel Blessed of course, just that for some reason my mind goes <em>\u201cfuzzy\u201d<\/em>.\u00a0 When that happens, I replay the previous week\u2019s events in my head, a day at a time, and when I reach something that makes me smile, I write it down.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>What a wonderful exercise that\u2019s turned out to be Father.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Forcing myself to go back, step-by-step, and taking special note of the Blessings You\u2019ve graced me with over the past seven days makes me realize even more thoroughly how much You Love me.\u00a0 We allow so many of Your Gifts to slip by unnoticed, that the thought of <em>\u201ccatching\u201d<\/em> some of them and giving thanks while they\u2019re still fresh very much appeals to me.<\/p>\n<p>And to that end Father God, this week I want to give special thanks and praise for:<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>106. Sixteen years of marriage to my wonderful wife Shannon.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>107. Wasabi-ginger marinated grilled boneless pork chops.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>108. Two little boys that still insist on hugs and kisses before bed.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>109. A beautiful 80 degrees, low humidity, sunny morning drive to work today.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>110. <a title=\"A Little Deeper\" href=\"http:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=1114\" target=\"_blank\">Transformational Benevolence<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>111. Jonathan\u2019s excitement in choosing a new Bible for confirmation class.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>112. Both boys doing extremely well this past school year (great report cards!).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>113. Running into old friends.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>114. Having a world-renowned Children\u2019s Hospital with a fantastic oncology department nearby (<a title=\"Nemours\/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nemours.org\/about\/location\/nchaidhc.html\" target=\"_blank\">A.I. DuPont Hospital for Children<\/a>).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>115. A wonderful afternoon walk in the woods with Jonathan and Aidan.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>116. The upcoming three-day holiday weekend.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>117. A lovely Anniversary dinner at the firepit on our back deck.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>118. My big, heavy, \u201cman\u2019s\u201d coffee mug from <a title=\"Mara Mugs\" href=\"http:\/\/www.marastore.com\/mara-mugs.php\" target=\"_blank\">Mara Stoneware Mugs<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>119. No obvious significant issues found at Jonathan\u2019s yearly checkup with his oncologist today.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>120. A Heavenly Father that listens patiently to my prayers.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I have so much to give thanks for Lord\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Heavenly Father, thank You for all the Blessings you gift us with each day.\u00a0 Please open our eyes and our hearts to better recognize those moments around us that radiate Your Glory, and guide us to share those Blessings effectively with others.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n<p>~Phather Phil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Lord; Happy Thankful Thursday Father! Quite often Lord, when I sit down to write out my list of Blessings for the Thankful Thursday post, I have a difficult time putting them in writing.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that I don\u2019t feel Blessed of course, just that for some reason my mind goes \u201cfuzzy\u201d.\u00a0 When that happens, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[1410,124,505,181,22,1433,851,359,168,256,419,182,286,132,1430,1434,1428,915,173,1437,228,208,276,769,966,59,805,444,140,273,593,916,111,1426,116,1248,133,23,203,1427,1429,123,601,217,205,249,1435,683,699,174,227,1436,73,117,114,40,1034,226,1115,1432,1098,1406,1431,157,379,1425,138],"class_list":["post-1124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-a-little-deeper","tag-a-i-dupont","tag-afternoon","tag-aidan","tag-anniversary","tag-anniversary-dinner","tag-beautiful","tag-bible","tag-bless","tag-blessed","tag-blessing","tag-boys","tag-child","tag-children","tag-childrens-hospital","tag-coffee-mug","tag-confirmation-class","tag-dear-lord","tag-father","tag-father-god","tag-friend","tag-gift","tag-gifts","tag-giving","tag-god","tag-grace","tag-graced","tag-happy","tag-heart","tag-hearts","tag-heavenly","tag-heavenly-father","tag-holiday","tag-hugs-and-kisses","tag-jonathan","tag-list-of-blessings","tag-love","tag-marriage","tag-moments","tag-morning-drive","tag-old-friends","tag-oncology","tag-praise","tag-pray","tag-prayer","tag-prayers","tag-radiate-gods-glory","tag-realize","tag-recognize","tag-school","tag-shannon","tag-share-our-blessings","tag-smile","tag-son","tag-thank-you","tag-thankful","tag-thankful-thursday","tag-thanks","tag-thanks-and-praise","tag-three-day-weekend","tag-transformation","tag-transformational-benevolence","tag-walk-in-the-woods","tag-wife","tag-wonderful","tag-wonderful-exercise","tag-work"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-i8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1124"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1127,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124\/revisions\/1127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}