Thankful Thursday!!

I'm a little off today, Hannah decided that instead of going out into the world today, she would prefer to stay at home and let me be her personal chef every three minutes. Thursdays are also lawn day, which means that we are blessed with the whirring of high powered grass chopping machines. I am most thankful that we do not have to care for our lawn, but at the same time we have the freedom to plant a few things. It's a perk of condo life that I never thought that I would enjoy as much as I do. And I really like it when the snow falls, and there's no need to go out there and clear a path for the mailman.

Here's something else that I am REALLY thankful for, it's the children's program at CBS in Ann Arbor. Hannah learned so much at Jesus and the Bible this year. It has been amazing to see the difference and to hear her talk about the Bible stories that she's learned. And she really enjoyed her time there. One of the things that I didn't even notice until close to the end was that every Tuesday, as Hannah was saying good bye, her teacher would come up, place her hand on her head and say a blessing over her.

That simple gesture has really started me on a pondering. I've been thinking about encouraging my daughter and how as her teacher, it is not my roll to discover what she's bad at and to berate her about it, but to discover what God has blessed her with and to encourage her in that way. To seek out every day a way to encourage my daughter into the life that God has called her to enjoy and explore. I get caught up in the way that my education played out with time lines and following the rules, that I can easily forget that there is more to life than just learning about reading, writing and arithmetic. It will be wonderful to see what God does with Hannah's life.

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Tina The Storyteller

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