Thankful Thursdays - Serving

For the last several summers, our church has put on a Summer Concert Series. During the four Wednesdays in August, our back parking lot is turned into a family-oriented concert hall. Some of the artists vary from year to year (two years ago Bethany Dillon joined us - I so enjoy listening to her voice!) and some of them come back (the Voetberg Family and last night's artist Warren Barfield, for example).

We don't go every week but when we do, we are never disappointed. We visit with friends from church, some we don't get to see often because they attend another service time than we do. We enjoy some good food (last night's burgers & hot dogs were huge!), some good fellowship and great music.

Last night was special in many ways. Some of that will be for another post but the one I want to share about here is in regard to the women I brought to the concert. I was fortunate enough to be able to drive our church van up to the local women's shelter (we've been doing a lot of volunteering in there for a few years, I've been volunteering for a few months), pick up 7 of the women who are staying there and bring them with me to the concert.

And therein lies the adventure that caused this list of just some of what I'm thankful for today.

1. I'm thankful that God has put me in a place where I can bless these women from driving the van, to offering devotions with them on Sunday mornings, to just listening to them as they talk. It never fails they end up blessing me, no matter how small or simple what I have done seems to me.

2. I'm thankful that God gave me that oh so very brief time years ago when I was homeless. I'm thankful it happened and even more thankful it was as brief as it was. My son was in 2nd grade at the time and nothing - absolutely nothing - has frightened me more in my life than not having a permanent roof over his head, no job and no job prospects. My family took me in after just one night in a not-so-reputable hotel but it was months before I could get into an apartment and call it ours.

3. I'm thankful that of all the nights to drive the van, God has me drive for Warren Barfield's concert. He and his back-up band were awesome and they spent time afterwards mingling with all of us from the church and were great sports when the women from the shelter wanted pictures.

4. I'm thankful that God lead me as I drove that van last night. You wouldn't think a 13 passenger van would be that big a deal but I'd never driven one before and I took those ladies home after 9PM. It was dark and the freeway went down to 2 lanes at one point for construction. It's not a super-maneuverable vehicle. I could have panicked but... God handled it.

5. I'm thankful for pretzels and husbands who love their wives. I'm thankful for a song titled Mighty to Save. And those comments are for another post.

Have a gloriously blessed Thursday!