Happy Thanksgiving!

Today we head up to Oklahoma for a Hess Family Thanksgiving. Guaranteed to be full of yummy food, happy kiddos, and Black Friday shopping... oh and football, we can't forget the football.

But I wanted to encourage you to really think about what you're thankful for this year. I think most years I say a little thanks on the day of, but this year I think I realize how much we really are blessed.

I was in our little kitchen cleaning up after hosting Bible study and I started to look around. One of the girls at Bible study hadn't seen our house yet, so I had the pleasure of giving her the house tour (which I love doing, by the way). So after every one had left I looked around our kitchen.

We have food, yummy food, like the ability to go to the store and buy whatever I want. Now, not all day every day or we'd go broke, but I can go to the store today and buy a turkey if I'd like or those yummy looking cupcakes in the bakery section without bouncing the check for the electricity.

I look around my little kitchen, and I know I talk about how I'd love to paint the cabinets and the flooring is very very retro, but we have a kitchen! Like we own a kitchen, that works and doesn't (usually) have bugs and we've even got a gas cooktop that I LOVE! (Well I guess the bank still owns part of the kitchen).

Although Kyle was out of town that night, I have a husband that, you guys, is the most incredible man that could have ever decided to marry me. Just this week he left me a note on the mirror when he left town, he did so many dishes, he cleaned up the house on his day off, he helped me make dinner, and then just the other night he helped me hang the gallery wall. Yep, me all "um, maybe the frame should go just a little bit to the left, oh not here, oops, maybe hang the frame a little more spaced" and him just helping along, or actually doing all the work while I "supervised." (Can't wait to show you the gallery wall!!)

I have family and friends who love me to death. I cannot tell you how fun it was last weekend to get to hang out with all of my siblings, and have fun (I feel like a lot of people can't really say they enjoy that, but we do!) I've got a job that I actually like going to, I'm healthy, and to top it off my hair has natural highlights, lol.

I have a God who loves me more than anyone ever will. Who paint the sky in sunsets and sunrises just for me sometimes, who teaches me in little and big ways how much I need to trust him because he is all love and all in control.

I know there are more things, and I'm thankful for them all. But I encourage you to stop in your kitchen sometime this week, while the house is filled with guests and dishes and pies or while the house is quiet and empty, and thank the Lord for all the things he's given you. Even if you spend more time wishing you had the Jones' Ikea, trendy, all stainless steel commercial grade kitchen... take a few minutes to love your own, your own kitchen, your own family or your own friends.

We said this as loud as we could with my kiddos at church on Sunday night, like yelled it to the tops of our lungs with hand motions and everything, lol:

Be joyful always, pray continually, Give Thanks in all circumstances. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

And of course, Happy Thanksgiving. And be careful out there all you Black Friday shoppers, it's a crazy world out there.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Hess House