Gratitude Week 5

A lot is going on in my life right now.  I am finishing the semester up at school today.  I am going to be looking for a new caregiver soon.  JoAnn just really doesn't have the time anymore to help me, take care of her family, and work a full-time job.  When she started working for me she was at another store and could work her schedule out better but with the move to the bigger store and everything it's just really been a struggle for her to be here when I need her to be.  My sister Connie goes in for surgery for her colon cancer May 6th or 7th.  Please pray for her and for the surgeons hands that God will guide them to take out exactly what needs to be removed.  Chanda found out that her knee was not a torn ligament or tendon like the doctors suspected but was actually the same thing that is wrong with mine only she found out in an earlier stage.  Please pray that God can heal her knees and she can do what she needs to do to gain better health.  She is in the last legs of her nurses training and she just keeps saying "I just want to be able to finish", she is scheduled to graduate in August I believe. 
On to the weight loss journey.  I have gained back some weight.  I now have only lost 60 lbs.  I have to get determined.  I have been in a deep depression lately and I can't seem to get out of it.  That hasn't helped the weight loss because I eat when I get upset.  If I don't lose the weight I am signing my own death warrant.  In related issues, I have determined I am a foody.  I had the best ice cream in the world the other day.  It reminded me of when I was a child and my mom used to take us to Kay's Ice Cream Parlor for a special treat.  We never had ice cream in the house growing up, for that matter we didn't have chips, cokes, cookies, or cakes.  If it didn't come from the garden we didn't eat it basically, except for hamburger, bread, and maccaroni and cheese(the powder kind, and the staples, (you know= flour, meal, shortening, tea, coffee, sugar).  We always had plenty to eat we just didn't eat like other people did.  Anyway the ice cream was Kay's Strawberry Shortcake.  OH MY GOSH!!!  Jo Ann and I got some and as I was eating it I was trying to figure out the flavors.  I kept saying if I didn't know better I would think it had buttermilk in it.  Well, it did, it was awesome, buttermilk, whole milk, cream, eggs, cream cheese, strawberries.  What's not to love.

So that brings us to the gratitude list:

1)  I am thankful for God's healing power.  I know He can touch my sister's bodies like he has so many times in the past.  He has healed my family of cancer, CHF, other heart issues, I watched my mother have a stroke when I was about 10 and I called for prayer and I watched her face return to normal right before my eyes.  I know God's power to heal is not gone.  I know if it is His will He will heal them both. 
2)  I am thankful for the opportunity God has blessed me with to attend college.  It was a life-long dream of mine to be a teacher.  Through God's grace He has taken the mistakes I made right out of high school and turned them around so that I will be able to obtain a degree in Elementary Education.  I can never thank God enough for this opportunity.  I had a full tuituion scholarship to Lincoln Memorial University when I finished High School and I decided that it was more important to enter the work force and support myself than to go away to school.  I was broken hearted over it for a long time because I did what I felt I had to.  God really can mend your broken heart and restore to you the things you thought you had lost forever. 
3)  I am thankful for the food I have to eat.  God has always blessed us to have enough even in times when we wouldn't have anymore food in the house.  God has never left my family hungry and He has blessed me to be able to have an appetite. This can be a two-edged sword for me but I have seen people who wanted to eat not be able to and I am thankful that God has blessed me to not have to go through that to this present time.  Pray that I can gain control, through God's help, of my addiction to eating too much.