Today I am thankful for the clouds. I am thankful for the rain. Sometimes you need hard times to appreciate the good ones.

It's the contrast, you see, that makes the burning amber and the bright shades of reds and oranges pop. Against the grey skies is the beauty of fall. 

It's this same contrast between the light of the Son and the darkness of sin. The life in Christ and the death all around us. His holiness, our wickedness. His strength, our weakness. His greatness, our littleness.

Today I am thankful for my Heavenly Father who sent His only Son so that I might be freed from sin and death and the chains of this world. I have been bought with a price, ransomed, set free! In love, in gratitude, I give it back to Him.

My life is not my own. It is His. I am His. And He is mine.