What Am I Thankful For?

For me, Thanksgiving is every day...but I'll address what is at the top of my list. I have to say at the top of my list of what I am thankful for most is the gift of God's salvation. Only because of the sacrifice of His only Son for our sins, can we experience His love, mercy and grace, and have a relationship with Him. Even though I have been listening my Pastor's Sinner's Prayer every Sunday for three years, the awesome reality of the gift of salvation still brings tears to my eyes.

The first time I heard "A Heart Like Mine," it was on a compilation CD by various CCM artists. I loved the CD, but I was burning a hole through Bryan Duncan's "A Heart Like Mine." At this particular point in my life, I was just beginning to come into an understanding (as much as we can humanly comprehend anyway), of God's grace and mercy....even though I had been saved for 17 years! Needless to say I was overwhelmed.

Before I started to experience His love for myself, I remember feeling that God loved me, but what was so special about that? Didn't God create and love everybody? So God loves everybody, what was so special about the fact that He loved me?

Here is an often quoted quote from St. Augustine, Confessions, Book 3, chapter 11, 19: "O Thou Good Omnipotent, who so carest for every one of us, as if Thou caredst for him only; and so for all, as if they were but one."

David comes to mind, when I think of His special relationship with God. David understood that He could have an intimate relationship with God. God called him a man after God's own heart. Wow! That same special relationship with God is available to each of us as individuals...not as a collective worldwide group. Isn't God awesome?

Here are the lyrics that take me right into a spirit of adoration and worship.

A Heart Like Mine

by Bryan Duncan

Of all the hearts in the world
I've only one to give
So insecure, a desperate pulse
Racing to Your embrace
That You could want me and seek me
Is more than words could ever say
That You would love me and see in me
A pearl of price, thrown away

A heart like mine
How could it be worthy that You'd find
A way to redeem this hardened clay
Twisted and broken
Oh Father God above
The wonder that You'd love a heart like mine

Your holy hands hold me still
Shaping my heart anew
Once vacant shell now reclaimed
Offers its praise to You
The one who searched till You found me
A wounded lamb whose gone astray
You stopped the world to recover me
Oh Lamb of God, the price You've paid

A heart like mine

How could it be worthy that You'd find

A way to redeem this hardened clay

Twisted and broken

Oh Father God above

The wonder that You'd love a heart like mine

I make my promise to

Do the one thing I can do with abandon
I can give every heartbeat to You

A heart like mine
How could it be worthy that You'd find
A way to redeem this hardened clay
Twisted and broken
Oh Father God above
The wonder that You'd love a heart like mine

A heart like mine
How could it be worthy that You'd find
A way to redeem this hardened clay
Twisted and broken
Oh Father God above
The wonder that You'd love a heart like mine

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