On Being Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving Friends!  

I’ve been thinking a lot about thankfulness in the recent weeks.  Here are a few of my thoughts:

There are varying degrees of thankfulness.  For instance, you can be thankful that your favorite team won the big game, which is not the same degree as being thankful that you have a huge, loving, supportive family.  There are many degrees of thankfulness between those two.  None of them are trivial or wrong.  It’s ok to be thankful that you don’t have to get up early and go to work on Saturday, just as it is ok to be thankful that you are healthy and happy and have a roof over your head.  Gratitude is gratitude no matter the reason.  I think it’s especially important in these times to be thankful for everything.  It makes your heart lighter and your outlook brighter.  No one has a perfect life and many, many have it way worse than most of us reading this today.  But it’s not only the good things we should be thankful for.  Because when I said we should be thankful for everything, I meant exactly that.  Everything.  Good and bad. 

It’s important to give thanks for the wonderful as well as the wearisome.  I’ve practiced this for a long time, although not as consistently as I should.  No one is perfect, right?  Recently I’ve been really thinking about being thankful when life throws you things that are really hard to handle.  And as I have practiced this over the last few weeks I have found something really amazing has happened.  I have such a peace of mind about everything.  That’s not to say that I know everything is going to turn out rosy, but more importantly I know that no matter how it all turns out, everything will be ok.  Because I know that no matter what happens, God is always with me, guiding me to try and see the purpose in everything.  And when I express thankfulness to God for EVERYTHING in my life, I feel at peace.

At night, when I say my prayers I end by thanking God for every good and beautiful and wonderful thing in my life and then I thank Him for all the trials and tribulations and heartaches too.  Because everything, as long as I draw breath on this Earth, is a gift from God.  Even the bad stuff.  We may never know the reason for the trials but that’s ok. Just knowing that God has a plan is enough.  Trust me.  It’s enough.

This Thanksgiving my wish for all of us is to have the peace and happiness that comes from being truly thankful for everything.

I love you my friends.  God Bless.