{"id":177,"date":"2016-11-25T09:25:32","date_gmt":"2016-11-25T09:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/?p=177"},"modified":"2016-11-25T09:25:32","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T09:25:32","slug":"the-odd-thanksgiving-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/?p=177","title":{"rendered":"The Odd Thanksgiving List"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I call this \u201cThe Odd Thanksgiving List\u201d because these aren\u2019t things people are typically grateful for. Hah, let me edit that\u2014these are things I\u2019m not typically grateful for. However, through the years I\u2019ve learned to see these once upon a time annoyances as blessings in disguise. Why? Because it has stripped me of a good deal of selfishness and shallowness. It\u2019s also allowed lots of growth in God that I would have never discovered if my life was smooth sailing. This thanksgiving I am thankful that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>I don\u2019t have everything I want or need<\/strong> \u2013 Some days I daydream about what it would be like to have absolutely everything my heart desired. I could jet set to Italy or have every item in the newest MAC Cosmetics collection. And then I realize that life would be pretty hum-drum if this was the case.\u00a0Special things that we save up for like vacations, fine dining dinners, and other luxury items would seem, well, normal. We wouldn\u2019t have much to save up for and look forward to.<\/li>\n<li><strong>I have times of weakness<\/strong> \u2013 I had to think twice about this one. I think it\u2019s safe to say that most of us don\u2019t like feeling incapable. We want to do things on our own and achieve them with great success. In fact, many of us probably don\u2019t like asking for help. In my weakness, I have learned set my pride aside and ask for help when I need and accept it without always thinking I owe them something in return. I\u2019ve also learned to lean hard on God when I have absolutely no strength within me.<\/li>\n<li><strong>I don\u2019t get my way all the time<\/strong> \u2013 I\u2019ve made some bad decisions and so I\u2019m pretty glad that I don\u2019t have my say-so\u2019s when I say-so. There was the time I thought I was destined to be a journalist and gave my everything to become one\u2014then realized it was one of the most time consuming and stressful careers that would keep me from family and friends. Then there was another time I thought I met \u201cthe one\u201d and was angry at the Lord when he met someone else (he ended up not having very good values in life I would later learn). When God says no or wait\u2014I think \u201cOk Lord, so what is the plan? Lead me there.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This Thanksgiving, let&#8217;s revaluate the &#8220;negatives&#8221; in our lives and think outside the box of how God could be blessing you.<\/p>\n<p>Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!<\/p>\n<p>Always,<\/p>\n<p>Faith<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I call this \u201cThe Odd Thanksgiving List\u201d because these aren\u2019t things people are typically grateful for. Hah, let me edit that\u2014these are things I\u2019m not typically grateful for. However, through the years I\u2019ve learned to see these once upon a time annoyances as blessings in disguise. Why? Because it has stripped me of a good [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180,"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions\/180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}