Repost from the Archives: Thanksgiving Tree

I am busy eating a second turkey dinner today…so much to be thankful for this year! Enjoy this post from the archives.

I had intended to do a different post today. But I got side tracked on Pintrest. I found this clever idea for a Thanksgiving Tree and I loved it! I knew I had to include it in my 31 Days of Pintrest DIY project posts. But then.............

I happened to be surfing the web over at A Holy Experience, one of my favorite inspirational blogs, when I came across her version of this idea.

Photo from www.aholyexperience.com

And my heart melted right down to my toes. You see, Ann Voskamp's Thanks Giving Tree has bible verses on the leaves. Each day you choose a leaf and write what you are thankful for on the back. Each day you read the words from scripture on the front of the leaves. These are the words that give you a reason to give thanks.

And my heart melted right down to my toes. 

Ann has that affect on me. 

She always takes things one step further, one step more than I would have thought to go.

I was prepared to spend hours cutting out little circles for the first tree. But Ann had already done all the hard work. She designed these free printable leaves with the bible verses on them. You can print out these free from her website. They are beautiful.

Ann always goes one more step further than I would have thought to go.

So we printed them off (it does take about 10 minutes to load), and cut them out for our Thanksgiving Tree.

We trudged through the fields to find just the right sticks for our tree and brought them home. We cut them out, wrote on our leaves, and put them on the branches. I added some fall decorations, and we stood back to admire it.

It was pretty, but it seemed like there was something missing. I couldn't put my finger on it at first.

Then I saw it on one of the leaves, and I KNEW what we were missing. It was so obvious then.

And my heart melted right down to my toes.

I pulled out a little sign I had laying around the house and hung it above our tree. It was just what our Thanksgiving Tree needed. 

You see, we need to give thanks for all things, not just the good ones, but the bad ones as well. We needed to pray for our hearts to be changed by this activity. It's not always easy to give thanks for all things, but with prayer we can change that and have a Thankful heart.

One of my friends posts what she is thankful for everyday during November on Facebook. That is how she gives thanks.

My great great grandmother's name was Thankful Melissa Lorinda Dennison Dibble. No, I am not joking, her name really was Thankful. She was born in 1685.  I wish I could have known her. I wonder what sort of heart she had? I like to think that every time she saw or heard her name she gave thanks to God.  What a wonderful reminder it would be to have the word Thankful before you every day. 

Thankful

Thankful

Thankful

Thankful

Thankful

And my heart melted right down to my toes.

Are you thankful today?