What I'm thankful for . . .

This may sound like some amatuer term paper one would write in high school, to write about how I spent my summer, but with today being Thanksgiving, I thought I'd share a bit about what the last 11 months looked like and how I am truly thankful.

Right off the bat, 2011 has been one trial after another for our family.

January and February (and the early part of March) were not the best for us, financially-speaking.  Aside from filing for bankruptcy, which we didn't do, imagine two of the worst possible financial disasters one could face.  Okay, I imagine the IRS coming after us would be bad and that didn't happen, but anyway these two financial disasters were not very pleasant to work through . . . but we did it.  It took a lot of hard work, budgeting, and guidance from close family members and a financial guru named Dave Ramsey, and we did it.  We emerged stronger than ever.

Then in April, my wife was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML).  Even with it being Thanksgiving and over seven months later, we're still not out of the water, but we're still working on it and my wife is healing more and more each day.  The doctor said she may not be completely healed for up to five years.

It's easy for one to look at all this and assume we would be just pissed at the world.  We're not.  We're thankful we went through the financial hell in January and February (yes, believe it or not, we're thankful) because when our other world fell apart, there would be no way we could've survived unless our financial house was in order.

I am thankful for family (most of them, and that's all I'm going to say about that so don't tempt me to elaborate - they'll come around, I'm very forgiving that way), friends, and even the community we live in.  We're also thankful for the medical staff at Altru Hospital in Grand Forks, ND and at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. We're also thankful for the generosity of so many individual people who have stepped up to help.

We're also thankful for God.  Because without His love, none of this would be possible.