A Time for Thanksgiving

Each year, we gather together with family, we eat turkey and stuffing, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie until we explode. We watch football and, if we can stay awake long enough after all the tryptophan makes its way through our bodies, we actually see the end of the game(s) and maybe play a few board games of our own. I love Thanksgiving. I love the time with family. I love playing games together and just enjoying the togetherness. As I think about all that we do together though, I am reminded that giving thanks is often on the backburner compared with everything else. It isn't that we aren't thankful, or that we don't give thanks as we prepare to eat. I know that my family and I are thankful, but I wanted to take a few moments today, before the rush of Thursday hits, to lists some of the things for which I give thanks this year. Feel free to add your own to the list as well.

In no particular order after the first one,

1. I am thankful and grateful to God for giving me the hope of eternal life. Without His hope, nothing else would be as sweet.

2. I am thankful for my family. I realize more and more as I grow older and hopefully wiser, that I have been blessed with a wonderful family. I not only love and respect my own family, but I love and actually enjoy my in-laws as well, and I know that they love me as their own. It may seem trite, but in today's society where the dysfunctional family is glorified and rampant, I know what a gift my family is.

3. I am thankful for a healthy mind and body. I'm thankful that I can do everything a "normal" person can do without thinking...like breathing and seeing and hearing and smelling and speaking. I will never take them for granted.

4. I am thankful for my husband who loves me as I am and sees in me something special and worthy of his love.

5. I'm thankful for my beautiful little girl who is such a blessing and has taught me so much. I know firsthand what a miracle she is.

6. I am thankful for true friends...for friends who know when I need a few hours out over a quiet dinner. I am thankful for those friends who know when to call and chat and when to sit and listen...and when to say, "I don't know how you feel, but I'll pray for you" and they mean it.

7. I'm thankful for my home and the ability to work and provide for ourselves. The job may not be perfect, but we are not out on the streets, we are comfortable and we have what we need and want.

8. I'm thankful for the sun, the seasons, and the beauty of this imperfect world as well as the knowledge that something even more amazing is waiting for me someday.

9. I'm thankful for my freedom and those who fight tirelessly to defend, even when their efforts are not popular. Somehow a simple "thank you" doesn't seem like enough.

10. I'm thankful for the struggles that I face because I know that, in the end, if I allow God to work through them, I will be a better person, and that I am a better person person because of the things I have already experienced. (Of course, this is still a hard one to feel thankful for, but I AM thankful anyway.)

Well, this is only a partial list. There is so much more...far too much to list, but it's a start. Take some time this Thanksgiving to do more than celebrate a holiday...take some time to give thanks.