{"id":1819,"date":"2011-12-23T13:19:10","date_gmt":"2011-12-23T17:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=1819"},"modified":"2011-12-23T13:19:10","modified_gmt":"2011-12-23T17:19:10","slug":"thankful-friday-that-greatest-of-gifts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=1819","title":{"rendered":"Thankful… Friday?: That Greatest of Gifts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Happy Thankful\u2026 Friday?<\/p>\n

Well Father, as You\u2019re no doubt aware I didn\u2019t manage to get my Thankful Thursday<\/span><\/em> post out yesterday afternoon.\u00a0 Instead however, of going into the Christmas weekend without listing out some of Your many Blessings in my life, I decided to make this \u201cThankful Friday\u201d<\/em>.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

As we focus our hearts on celebrating the miracle of Christ\u2019s birth Father, it seems only fitting to mark the beginning of this weekend by giving thanks; thanks for the daily Blessings You grace our lives with, and thanks for that Greatest of Gifts that Blessed our world so many years ago.<\/p>\n

On that note Lord, this past week I\u2019ve been especially grateful for:<\/p>\n

451. The inspiring and entertaining selection of Christmas Music that\u2019s been playing on 88.7 The Bridge<\/a> this season.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

452. The official release to the world of the new Ewell\u2019s-St. Paul UMC website<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

453. A fun dinner out last night with Shannon and Aidan.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

454. A lovely array of Christmas Lights that brighten my drive home from the office each evening.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

455. Free overnight shipping from Amazon.com.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

456. That Jonathan doesn\u2019t see brokenness, flaws, or differences in other children, just opportunities for new friends.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

457. That Jonathan had a wonderful sleepover birthday party last Friday night.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

458. The Light of a Star<\/a> leading my heart to His manger.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

459. A wonderful Chick-Fil-A lunch bought for our office by a good friend.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

460. Being asked to write a guest post for a friend\u2019s wonderful blog next month.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

461. A wonderful afternoon with friends celebrating their foster son\u2019s birthday.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

462. The healing power of a good laugh.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

463. Simple beginnings<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

464. A fun night of fellowship with our Tuesday night Small Group.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

465. The most important Christmas Gift even given; the birth of our Savior.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Heavenly Father,<\/p>\n

We thank You Lord, for the multitude of Blessings You grace us with each day; both those that shine high in the Heavens, guiding us to a manger, and those that whisper Your love for us gently on the evening breeze.<\/p>\n

In Jesus\u2019 Name we pray,<\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n

~Phather Phil<\/p>\nPin It<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Happy Thankful\u2026 Friday? Well Father, as You\u2019re no doubt aware I didn\u2019t manage to get my Thankful Thursday post out yesterday afternoon.\u00a0 Instead however, of going into the Christmas weekend without listing out some of Your many Blessings in my life, I decided to make this \u201cThankful Friday\u201d.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42 As we focus our […]<\/p>\nPin It<\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1820,"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":[1730,181,2204,207,1829,168,256,419,12,358,1016,286,132,321,2408,772,266,2305,2411,2412,219,1353,915,743,7,1725,173,220,42,2369,228,24,110,769,1568,59,427,2410,2126,847,444,5,140,273,593,916,808,159,271,269,2409,116,787,104,2390,2392,206,1325,377,1547,648,217,265,227,2377,187,1965,117,373,2413,2342,114,40,2407,1034,226,481,378,379],"class_list":["post-1819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-88-7-the-bridge","tag-aidan","tag-birth-of-our-savior","tag-birthday","tag-birthday-party","tag-bless","tag-blessed","tag-blessing","tag-blessings","tag-blog","tag-brokenness","tag-child","tag-children","tag-christ","tag-christs-birth","tag-christian","tag-christmas","tag-christmas-gift","tag-christmas-music","tag-christmas-weekend","tag-church","tag-contemporary-christian-radio","tag-dear-lord","tag-differences","tag-doubt","tag-ewells-st-paul-united-methodist-church","tag-father","tag-fellowship","tag-focus","tag-friday-night","tag-friend","tag-friends","tag-fun","tag-giving","tag-gods-love","tag-grace","tag-grateful","tag-greatest-of-gifts","tag-guest-post","tag-guiding","tag-happy","tag-healing","tag-heart","tag-hearts","tag-heavenly","tag-heavenly-father","tag-high","tag-home","tag-inspiring","tag-jesus","tag-jesus-birth","tag-jonathan","tag-leading","tag-light","tag-light-of-a-star","tag-manger","tag-meditation","tag-meditations-monday","tag-miracle","tag-multitude-of-blessings","tag-office","tag-pray","tag-season","tag-shannon","tag-simple-beginnings","tag-sleep","tag-small-group","tag-son","tag-special","tag-star-in-the-heavens","tag-strong","tag-thank-you","tag-thankful","tag-thankful-friday","tag-thankful-thursday","tag-thanks","tag-week","tag-wonder","tag-wonderful"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Nativity-in-the-City-1-Cropped.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-tl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819","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=1819"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1822,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819\/revisions\/1822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}