Last friday, HG2 got into the spirit of thanksgiving by reading Luke 17. We learned about a group of 10 lepers healed by Jesus, out of which only one turned back to give thanks. Perhaps the other nine were busy catching up on their lives, or imagining their exciting futures, or perhaps they felt they were entitled to being healed. Whatever the case, the 9/10 that didn't return missed out on a personal connection with Jesus. The last leper, a Samaritan, who even fell to the ground giving thanks, was able experience the kind of healing that he secretly wanted and deeply needed: a relational restoration to God. When we zoom out, we see how right it is for us to give thanks. Whether we're 18 or 48 years old, we've received a lot of blessing in our lives, and to not acknowledge it would be ignorant and hurtful to those people who were blessings to us. In order to reflect again on our salvation and all the people God has used in our lives, we read Deuteronomy 8 and rewrote it into a personalized prayer of thanks. I took that time to think of all the people who showed God's love and patience to a wily and rebellious Cynthia and to be thankful that God placed them in my life.

Some "highlights" from my personal Deuteronomy 8:

"And you shall remember that the Lord your God has led you these 19 years, during which you lived in rebellion..."

"And you shall be thankful for the youth group of CCCTO that kept you out of trouble on Friday nights through middle and early high school and gave you your first Christian role models, like Lily and Emily and Kaitlin, who told you the gospel for the first time..."

"And you shall be reminded of the evenings that Andrea spent with you patiently reading through course..."

Writing it all out, I found that there were many people that I wanted to thank. And, as John K. humorously taught us using a play on the Star Wars character's name: RAE, thankfulness doesn't stop with Remembering, or even Acknowledging. We bring it full circle by Expressing our thanks.

After our bible study, we celebrated a couple birthdays.

And we finished the night with fresh-baked store-bought pre-cut cookies and The Store Game. I was told that the key to this game is enthusiasm.

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Thanks for reading. See you next Friday!

-Cynthia

Looking for Luke's Lepers