| photo by incite-realty.com |
It's November, a month I love to fill with thanks. We spend so much time during Christmas running around like chickens running, buying, decorating, wrapping, eating, drinking, singing, celebrating, wishing, plotting, and regretting. November is the calm before the storm.
Sometimes I think I'd just like to celebrate the real birth of Christ after all the stores have gasped through their last holiday advertisement, their last grand push to entrap the wallets of the masses, during that black hole right after the twenty fifth when people are lying around bemoaning their thickening middles and thinning wallets.
Somehow I feel Christ fits there better. He is the calm joy, the serenity.
Perhaps it was the Lord's design that a day of thanks was placed just before all the wildness of the Christmas season so that we can take a breath to really think about what we already have, partly because they may not be around soon. We of this generation have grown up feeling we were owed these things we take for granted. We don't understand those things our grandparents fought for, sweated for, died for.
We've never had to cut the honey with water. We've never had to fill our shoes with newspaper because they're full of holes and let in the snow. We've never had to walk twenty miles to school (six, yes). Many of us have always had music playing right in our ears, computers at our finger tips, and a vast choice of programs to watch on TV. We haven't had to wait for anything. We haven't had to wish for something so badly we could taste it. And we're spoiled. We think we're owed all that. But we aren't. Someone had to pay for it all.
It chaps me greatly to see Christmas trappings already adorning the stores along with Halloween costumes. While we should treat people like it's Christmas all year round, the trappings are out of place before we've had that chance to think, to count the blessings He's already bestowed on us all year around.
So here are a few things I'm glad were in my life this year. I'm thankful for so many things. I'm thankful for manatees and bubble wrap, well-working can openers and velcro. I'm thankful for soldiers who give their lives in service to their country. I'm thankful for missionaries who give their lives in service to God. I'm thankful for mint chip ice cream. I'm thankful for (in no particular order):
my family
my church
books
| photo from theatrehouse.com |
fingerless mitts
heated swimming pools in the winter
my husband's job
good health
friends
lemon meringue pie
| photo from lebanair.com |
pi
foreign languages
a good voice
art erasers
pens that work
wing nuts
duct tape
rain on the sagebrush
snow
the freedom to worship
the right to bear arms
the right to vote
warm blankets in the winter
shade in the summer
cars that work
fudge
shrimp
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cheese enchaladas
dogs
the Constitution of the United States
horses
the ability to travel
hippopotamuseses
the planet Pluto
the color indigo
computers that work
lasagne
my home
and shoes.
There are many other things I'm grateful for, but I'm running out of time before I have to go prepare the delicious food our family is blessed with. I'm definitely glad for that.
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