Dear Lord; Happy Thankful Thursday Father!<\/p>\n
And yet again Father, we come to the Thankful Thursday<\/span><\/em> edition of PhatherPhil.org.\u00a0 To be completely honest Lord, this has been a painful and stressful week for me on a number of fronts.\u00a0 Ten years back, this kind of week would have seen me sleepless, highly agitated, and very likely drinking too much in an attempt to numb the angst.\u00a0 Thankfully Father, You\u2019ve freed me from those bonds;<\/p>\n The misconception that I have to rely on my own strength to solve my problems\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The chains of trying to use alcohol, food or other distractions to \u201cfill the hole\u201d that I was feeling\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The overwhelming sense that I was truly all alone in my trials\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n So although this week has brought along with it a number of challenges Lord, my spirit is much more at ease knowing Your presence is with me.\u00a0 I\u2019ve felt that soothing embrace around me as I\u2019ve struggled this week Father, and for that I am truly thankful.<\/p>\n Picking up where I left off on last week\u2019s list of Blessings, this week I\u2019m especially grateful for:<\/p>\n 346. The fellowship of our church family.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n 347. The indescribable \u201cGod High\u201d that I have following our Small Group gatherings.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n 348. Fresh, still-warm egg salad sandwiches.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n 349. Getting a significant jump-start on our Christmas crafting projects last weekend.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n 350. A wonderful, unexpected discussion of faith I had with a client last week.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n 351. Time spent teaching my boys about woodworking last weekend.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n 352. Finding a deli nearby my office that makes amazing subs and sandwiches.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n 353. Finding a good, free Twitter client that works on my PC, my Mac, my tablet and my phone.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n 354. The complex intertwining of souls<\/a> that You grace my life with.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n 355. YouVersion offering a 48-hour period this weekend where I can download NIV and NLV translations for offline viewing.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n 356. The wide variety of inexpensive or free eBooks available online.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n 357. Your reminders to me each day that I\u2019m always in Your loving embrace.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n 358. Neighbors that gave up their last three sheets of printer paper so our kids could finish a school project.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n 359. Eternal Prosperity<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n 360. Having a marriage where no matter how crazy or stressed things get, we\u2019re able to cut through it all and support each other.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Even when the clouds loom above us Father, Your many Blessings cut through that haze every time.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Heavenly Father,<\/p>\n We thank you Lord, for the multitude of Blessings You bring to our lives each day; both those that announce Your presence with abandon, and those that quietly Bess us from the shadows.\u00a0 You are indeed a loving, giving Father, and I rest securely knowing that whatever path You lead me down, that Your grace will ensure my steps land on sure footing.<\/p>\n In Jesus\u2019 Name we pray,<\/p>\n Amen.<\/p>\n ~Phather Phil<\/p>\nPin It<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
![Pin It<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dear Lord; Happy Thankful Thursday Father! And yet again Father, we come to the Thankful Thursday edition of PhatherPhil.org.\u00a0 To be completely honest Lord, this has been a painful and stressful week for me on a number of fronts.\u00a0 Ten years back, this kind of week would have seen me sleepless, highly agitated, and very […]<\/p>\nPin It<\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1510,"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":[2045,9,350,168,419,372,583,182,101,321,266,219,1727,649,866,647,915,508,2025,15,173,619,220,160,769,966,1736,1576,1507,427,593,916,2044,2023,269,190,658,78,1248,96,23,206,1325,1547,1525,448,19,2041,81,217,695,1282,137,69,727,174,796,187,2043,1965,134,373,95,86,384,2042,1790,777,764,476,544,114,40,1034,789,622,49,504,378,379,138,454,1292],"class_list":["post-1511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-alcohol","tag-alone","tag-amazing","tag-bless","tag-blessing","tag-bond","tag-books","tag-boys","tag-challenges","tag-christ","tag-christmas","tag-church","tag-church-family","tag-client","tag-cloud","tag-crazy","tag-dear-lord","tag-discussion","tag-eternal-prosperity","tag-faith","tag-father","tag-feeling","tag-fellowship","tag-food","tag-giving","tag-god","tag-gods-embrace","tag-gods-grace","tag-gods-presence","tag-grateful","tag-heavenly","tag-heavenly-father","tag-highly-agitated","tag-intertwining-souls","tag-jesus","tag-kids","tag-lead-me","tag-life","tag-list-of-blessings","tag-loving","tag-marriage","tag-meditation","tag-meditations-monday","tag-multitude-of-blessings","tag-niv","tag-overwhelming","tag-pain","tag-painful","tag-path","tag-pray","tag-problem","tag-project","tag-projects","tag-quiet","tag-rest","tag-school","tag-significant","tag-sleep","tag-sleepless","tag-small-group","tag-soul","tag-special","tag-spirit","tag-strength","tag-stress","tag-stressful","tag-stressful-week","tag-struggle","tag-support","tag-teach","tag-teaching","tag-thank-you","tag-thankful","tag-thankful-thursday","tag-trials","tag-unexpected","tag-weekend","tag-will","tag-wonder","tag-wonderful","tag-work","tag-works","tag-youversion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Cross-with-Chain-Frame-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-on","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511","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=1511"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1514,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511\/revisions\/1514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"http:\/\/pinterest.com\/pin\/create\/button\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.phatherphil.org%2F%3Fp%3D1511&media=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.phatherphil.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F10%2FCross-with-Chain-Frame-1.jpg&description=Inspirations+from+Phather+Phil+-+Thankful+Thursday%3A+Freed+From+My+Bonds\"){kind=link}