GIVING THANKS!!

Tomorrow families and friends will gather here in the USA to give thanks.  Ever since our country was founded over 200 years ago, it has been a tradition.  One of the busiest travel times of the year, people from all the the USA will travel hours and even days just to gather around the dinner table tomorrow to feast on turkey with all the trimmings.  Okay maybe your family doesn't cook a turkey. But no matter what you feast on, it is a day to stop ad give thanks.  

Maybe you don't feel you have much to be thankful for.  Maybe financially, physically or mentally you are struggling.  Maybe this year things didn't go the way you expected.  Maybe this year you lost a loved one and this is the first holiday without them.  Maybe this year you couldn't afford a turkey dinner or anything to cook.  Maybe you're at your wits end searching for someone to make you feel thankful.  Maybe this is the first holiday since the divorce or separation.  Maybe you just feel lost in a sea of "what about me".  Whatever circumstances you may be going through, please don't surrender to the feelings and emotions of "what if" and "if only"'  

I know it's hard to avoid those feelings and emotions but just for today I ask you to sit and quietly think about what you have to be thankful for.  There has to be something, even just one thing.  Think!  Do you have a roof over your head?  Okay maybe it's not fancy or even clean, but there are some today who don't even have a roof over their head.  Do you have electricity and running water?  There are some people here in the good ole USA who have no electricity and no running water.  Do you get where I am going with this?   Think!  There has to be something you are thankful for.

If you still feel like you have nothing to be thankful for, I challenge you to go to a third world country.  People live in shacks with dirt floors.  They drink water from a nearby river where animals use the river for a bathroom.  They eat (if they eat) the same rice every day, and they are thankful for that!  There are no soup kitchens around the block, there are no bathrooms, the water they drink we wouldn't even give to our dogs.  There is no hospital, no medical care, no local doctor or nurse.  

Listen I know that looking at your circumstances you may not have much to be thankful for but!  Look around the chaos in the world.  Look at the wars and the bombs and the destruction that seems to be everywhere.  Look at those who have less than you, but are happier and more grateful than you. 

1 Corinthians 15:57  But thanks be to God!  He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

I give thanks every day that I live in a country where I can worship God and praise Jesus Christ.  I thank God for my husband and my children and grandchildren.  I thank God for the food I have to eat and the water I have to drink.  I thank God for the cloths I have to wear and the shoes to protect my feet.  I thank God for my church and my pastors.  I thank God for allowing me to live in the USA.  

I could go on and on and on, but I won't bore you with my list to be thankful for.  Is my life perfect?  No!  Is the USA perfect?  No!  Could it be better?  Yes, but until I learn to be thankful for what I have now, as imperfect as it is, I will learn to be thankful if I get more.  

So these next few days as you gather to sit around a table and eat, please remember to thank God. It is because of Him that we are here.  It is because of Him we are alive.  It is because of Jesus Christ that we have eternity within our reach.

Lord, I thank you for who I am and who you created me to be.  Thank you for sacrificing your son for me.  Thank you for allowing me to live where I live.  Help me to always count my blessings in Jesus name I pray, amen.