Seeing as how we live in the greatest country in the world and are, by all accounts, the most blessed people in history, it doesn’t seem like overkill to celebrate thanksgiving for more than just one week. Let’s start today; thanks for giving me a week off last week—I’m thankful and better for it.
Before we can be thankful we have to open our eyes, which takes some effort because most of us don’t have our eyes open all the time. We grow numb: how many times have you struggled to come up with things to be thankful for at family thanksgiving?
Let’s just take a moment to consider.
Consider that song that was playing when you first got married, graduated high school, got your job or promotion, or learned your dad was coming home from his deployment.
Consider the soft cheeks on your baby boy or girl that day after, the day they were one day old.
Consider the wind as it winds through the trees and finally hits you in the face as you turn toward the clear blue sky and watch the clouds fly by.
Consider the dirt roads, the bonfires, the tight hugs, the bumps that tried to split your side in two as you hummed across the ground with your friends.
Consider the time you looked at the moon and actually considered the profound miracle of existence, of the perfect symmetry and balance of the Universe that things float and remain in the space-time continuum so consistently and how one-in-a-million it all is.
Consider the time that you climbed the mountain and laid down on the very top in the pitch black and looked up at the stars, so clear that you could see the band of stars through the middle that looked like a portal opening up to the spaceship-of-a-planet you were laying on.
Or what about that time you felt like someone loved you, truly, and it took your breath away that they would care for you, truly, especially since they knew your flaws.
Or what about the people who have forgiven you when you wronged them and how much goodness was injected into your life because of that act of kindness.
These are just a few of the things; the Valdosta Daily Times doesn’t have enough pages in their shop to print all the moments, people, places, and things that have brought you blessing, goodness, and joy.
But this Thanksgiving be prepared, let’s. Why not?
Imagine what it’ll be like at Thanksgiving when it comes your turn to tell what you’re thankful for.
Just don’t let the food get cold.
“Count your blessings;
Name them one by one.
Count your many blessings;
See what God hath done.”