COUNTING MY GOLD!

The people of each country in the world whose top athletes were competing in the Olympics in Rio, have eagerly watched their country's contestants and cheered them on in front of the TV toward winning a GOLD Medal—or at least a silver or bronze.

Some athletes won more than one GOLD. Michael Phelps, for example, has won more than twice as many GOLD medals as any other Olympian—and more than many entire nations. Since the modern Olympics began in 1896, 63 countries have taken home fewer GOLD medals in all than the 23 GOLDS accrued by Phelps in his past four appearances at the Summer Olympics!

Today is the day and the special date, August 23, for me to thank God by COUNTING MY GOLD!

I am counting my GOLD daily! I am incredibly rich! From the time I was a 21 year old bride, I've always celebrated this special date, August 23.
Today would have been our 69^th wedding anniversary if my husband, Ted, had not preceded me to Heaven after 46 years of marriage, parenting, and ministry. I regret that we didn't make it together for our GOLDen wedding anniversary. Ted would have celebrated his birthday—100 earthly years—this year. But in the Eternal realm, time is not counted since everything and everyone is forever.

I am counting my GOLD daily! I am incredibly rich! Not in GOLD medals for athletic competition, but GOLD in relationships with which God has blessed me. I am celebrating our four precious sons, ten beloved grandchildren, and ten cherished great-grandchildren (soon to be eleven counting a precious one still in the womb.)

The number includes a few treasured blended family loved ones. I've never made any distinction. They are not lesser silver or bronze in my love but GOLD as well. So are ex-in laws who remain dear to my heart. I simply open my arms wider to embrace them all because they enrich my life and I hope that I enrich theirs.

The GOLD I count daily and that makes me rich includes my relatives, past and present, with whom I share a roots heritage. I carry their DNA and they have, under God, of course, partially determined who I am, and I pass it on through my progeny to generations to come.

I am counting my GOLD daily in friends around the world and in my own neighborhood, in my church, in my community—all in my heart. They have also helped to make me who I am through their friendship, prayers, and love, and I have piled up my GOLD higher.

But think of my responsibility for all of these relational blessings! 

Since I am the matriarch of my immediate family, God commits to me the joyful spiritual obligation to pray for each one regularly as He brings them one by one to my mind and heart. Each is “a special needs” loved one.

Often I really don't know what those special needs are or what to pray as I ought, but the Holy Spirit can pray through me right on target to their need. (Romans 8:26-28) I don't have to know what their need might be—He knows the will of God for their lives and edits my weak prayers before they get to Jesus. Then Jesus does the answering. It is up to me to be faithful to bring each of my loved ones to Jesus, just as the mothers brought their children to Him so He would bless them, as the Scripture records.

What better date than today, August 23^rd to devote to that sacred task?