{"id":55,"date":"2012-06-27T12:21:31","date_gmt":"2012-06-27T18:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/one-church.net\/kathyaddis\/?p=55"},"modified":"2012-06-27T12:21:31","modified_gmt":"2012-06-27T18:21:31","slug":"thankful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kathyaddis.com\/?p=55","title":{"rendered":"Thankful"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You know, I sure have a lot to be thankful for.<\/p>\n<p>Not just today, even though today is my birthday. Forty first to be exact. I&#8217;ve had a lot to be thankful for my whole life. In fact, the fact that I&#8217;m here at all is something to be thankful for.<br \/>\nI can hear my Grandma Hixson telling the story to complete strangers as if it were yesterday, &#8220;And this is Katsy-Baby. She&#8217;s our little miracle. She was born three months early. Why, she only had one in one hundred chance of living!&#8221;<br \/>\nWhile I believe her facts were true, I found it incredibly embarrassing to be introduced that way every, yes every,  single time! She was thankful for her granddaughter and maybe a little bit proud, too. And, I&#8217;m thankful that her facts are true and that I was a miracle, to be born that early in 1971 was certainly a miracle.<br \/>\nAnd no, you may NOT call me Katsy-Baby! That right was reserved for Mary Ellen Hixson only! &#8230;I love and miss you Grandma&#8230;<br \/>\nTo list all the amazing miracles in my life since then would simply be impossible. Although, I think sometimes it&#8217;s a good idea to jot things down so as to not forget them, or to help keep us on track.<br \/>\nThat&#8217;s where I am today, trying to stay on track.<br \/>\nYou see, I&#8217;ve gotten a little distracted lately with a couple of the things I should be thankful for; specifically, my kids. Maybe not in the way you&#8217;re thinking.<br \/>\nThey are typical boys in that they are ornery and silly and can have a tendency to make you a little nuts at times, but my distraction has been that I miss them.<br \/>\nMy boys are eleven and thirteen years old now. And for the first time in their lives I have really missed them being my babies. If you know me you know this is weird.<br \/>\nI&#8217;m not really the &#8220;baby&#8221; type. Don&#8217;t get me wrong, I love babies. I love to hold and love on them and then to give them back when they get cranky. I do not consider myself to be an exceptionally patient person, so, why on earth would I want my amazingly self sufficient young men to be babies again? Why would I reminisce to the point of real heartache?<br \/>\nI think the answer lies in being thankful.<br \/>\nI think I allowed the enemy to distract me with the memories of how adorable and shy and cute and sweet my boys WERE that I was forgetting to be thankful for how thoughtful, smart, genuine, kind, loving and amazing they are now.<br \/>\n&#8220;I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all your wonderful deeds.&#8221; Psalm 9:1<br \/>\nWhen I feel that twinge of heartache for my two babies, I quickly thank my God for my two young men. I stand in awe of how He takes the heartache and turns it to joy and pride (the good kind) in a heart beat.<br \/>\nHe knows this mom so well.<br \/>\nI know I can&#8217;t recount ALL the wonderful things God has done in my life since that miracle 41 years ago today, but He has taught me it&#8217;s good to be thankful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You know, I sure have a lot to be thankful for. Not just today, even though today is my birthday. Forty first to be exact. I&#8217;ve had a lot to be thankful for my whole life. In fact, the fact that I&#8217;m here at all is something to be thankful for. I can hear my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kathyaddis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kathyaddis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kathyaddis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kathyaddis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kathyaddis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/kathyaddis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59,"href":"http:\/\/kathyaddis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions\/59"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kathyaddis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kathyaddis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kathyaddis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}