Frank Lewis
Portsmouth Daily Times
I have so looked forward to writing my Thanksgiving column this year. I have been chomping at the bit. This has been a year in which I have more things to be thankful for than any other year.
It is no secret — my first love is preaching and teaching the Bible. This year, I have expanded that world by not only teaching my regular Sunday class at New Life Family Worship Center, but I have added a bi-weekly Saturday prophecy class at the same church, and have begun preaching on a more regular basis at First Christian Church in Portsmouth.
I am thankful for the opportunity to study and teach, and for the ability to reach out to those who attend my classes and services.
I am thankful for friends. This year has seen folks like Brian and Barb Setser and Jim and Judy Hedrick come deeper into my life and, most recently, Bob and Karen Wilson have become regular fixtures in my world. I am thankful for all of them.
I am thankful for the blessings God has brought into my life with his gift of another day, one at a time. I’ll take it.
It is also no secret that I love my job. I have learned so much since coming to the Daily Times. In a day in which I, like most Americans, have become cynical about news coverage, I know there are people who work to get the truth out with absolutely no agenda. I trust everyone I work with because I know of not one of them who has an agenda. That renews my faith in news coverage.
Finally, the real reason I wanted to write this column. If this is too personal, let me apologize in advance. I am blessed with a wonderful wife who, at times, has to endure my inadequacies. Listen to me — being married for 48 years is a major accomplishment, and anyone who tells you it is a piece of cake, is lying to you.
She not only provides a home environment that is comfortable and complete, but she supports my work, which is the most important thing in my life. She has had to put up with someone who can’t build anything or fix anything. She just hangs in there with me, seeing something in me that I have yet to see in myself. What I have seen in her is that she underestimates who she is and I don’t know if that will ever change, but I know who she is, and the importance of her love and support which I will never take for granted. I know for a fact that I could not do what I do without her.
I am unabashedly in love with Joyce Ann Lewis for more reasons than I can say, but among them are that she has given me the two most important people in my world: my sons, Tony and Michael.
So, I want it to be known that I am thankful to God for all of his provisions and my goal is to be just as thankful for all of the blessings I have received the other 364 days of the year.
I Timothy 4:4-5: “For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.”
Happy Thanksgiving.
Reach Frank Lewis at 740-353-3101, ext. 1928, or on Twitter @franklewis.
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