Giving Thanks, Day 12

I am participating in Joyce's Thirty Days of Giving Thanks.  Her blog is http://brooksidecottage.blogspot.com/.  You can also get to her blog by clicking on the yellow rose with 30 days... on it.

I am thankful for my job as a special education paraeducator at a local high school.  There are two students, a boy and a girl, who get very silly and inappropriate when in the same room.  The girl missed several weeks of school because of a serious surgery she had.  I work with the boy on identifying coins and counting them.  Now that she's back, he's had some problems concentrating on what we are doing.  The other day, when she was being silly, and he kept wanting to turn around and look at her and laugh, I told him I knew he could focus on his work, and said, "You've got the power (to ignore her)!"  That has helped, now, when I tell him that.  Today, when we were getting started, I wasn't sure if he remembered what coin and how many I had asked for.  When I asked him if he remembered what I said, he said, "I've got the power!"  LOL  He must have been distracted by her, and I didn't realize it yet.

That made me think of me in my life.  I am thankful for the power of God in my life, and for his forgiveness when I try to get by without it.  I am reminded of Ephesians 1:18-21:

"I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.  That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power, and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come."

Wow!  The same power that raised Jesus from death is at work in us!  The next verses talk about how we are made alive in Christ.  Ephesians 2:8-10 bear repeating:

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

So, I am thankful for my job, and that I have the power of God working in my life, even when I'm not aware of it.