Yay God - I'll get back to the 'loony left' next week maybe

For the sake of my sanity (and Fnord’s) I have chosen not to criticize anyone today – in this article that is – or whine about the declining state of our nation and the raving lunatics on the left.

Instead, I’m doing a traditional good ole’ count-yer-blessings list of some of the things I am extremely thankful for.

I think it’s important to remember that God is good and God is in control, so even when the crazies like Turner and Churchill expose their incapacity to form coherent thought, and even when every single news agency on the planet tops its headlines with, “bloodiest day,” we still have cause to rejoice.

I’m still allowed to pray whenever I want and put a Christian bumper sticker on my car (much to the dismay of my roommates), even though the ACLU would argue that my doing so while in the Army constitutes “government endorsement” of my religion.

No one is talking about President John Kerry on the news, for which I say to God, “Thank you,” and also “woohoo!”

I’ve been delivered completely from smoking - which I did for seven years, on and off – since May.

Tonight when I go to bed it will actually be a bed and not a cot with a mosquito net over it. It is unlikely that I will wake up on the floor of an apartment in a foreign country, with my temperature at nearly 108º, or a hospital where I am convinced my limbs belong to someone else (believe me, having an arm that belongs to some woman the doctor says “isn’t there” can cause a considerable amount of angst).

I’m free to pursue a higher education, practice my faith, dress how I please, and write whatever I want about the people who disagree with me. The people who speak out against President Bush would do well to be thankful they don’t live in pre-“unjust” war Iraq, where to criticize the president could get you landed in a mass grave with your whole family (or in a prison where they know what “torture” really means).

I am free to travel without being accompanied by a husband, brother or father, which is nice. Can you imagine having to be accompanied by a man to “supervise” you wherever you went?

I have been assured that my friend, who is in the most dangerous neighborhood in Baghdad, Haifa Street, will return safely, and I trust God to keep that promise. Although He wasn’t specific about what he meant by “safely,” (i.e. “alive, or “alive with all limbs in tact…”) so I keep praying.

I have a completely functional family, in which both parents and all 400 children love each other deeply. Perhaps the parents love each other a little too much, hence the 400 children (this is not the actual number, it’s just I can’t count higher than seven for some reason.)

I have a savior who died for me and would have done so if I were the only person in the world. Hard for me to understand, but important for me to remember is that He would also have done so if Stuart was the only person in the world.

Yay God.