Our thoughts turn to things to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving ay 2020. It has been a year, so far, that saw the cancelation of almost everything that we look forward to sports events, parades, wedding and more have been put off or were not held , due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For many it has been a year of gut-wrenching pain as they lost loved ones to the disease. Many others, who lived through it, continue to suffer the debilitating after effects of it. For others, the loss of jobs has left them destitute and barely able to hold on. For them, this Thanksgiving feels like one that Charlie Brown described in a recent post to the Jack’s Winning Words blog –
“I can’t cook a Thanksgiving dinner. All I can make is cold cereal or maybe toast.” (Charlie Brown)
Yet, all who are in those states still have something for which to be thankful. They are all still alive to be thinking about it. If they are reduced to eating cold cereal and a piece of toast that is still more than the starving children of many African nations have today. If they ae homeless and living on the streets, they are still LIVING and being thankful for that is a start.
Most of us are probably not facing such hardships this day, but most also probably don’t begin each day by being thankful that they woke up again. As one gets older, that becomes more of a thing for which to be thankful. If one starts by thanking God for giving them another day, it is easier to move on to finding other things for which to be thankful – friends and family come immediately to mind.
Each of us could quickly compile a list of other things for which we are thankful. That puts one on the right frame of mind to go out and create new things for which to be thankful – successes in one’s job, meeting new people and making new friends, experiencing new and different things in life and so much more.
So eat the cereal and toast, if that’s what life gives you, and be thankful that you are still here to do so. Take a moment to thank God for giving you another day in which you can do better, experience more and be happier. God’s promise was not heaven on earth; but rather Heaven after earth. Don’t ask God to give you more; ask instead that He help you find more joy in what you have already. The Bible tells us…
“Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot.” (Ecclesiastes 5:18)
We are also admonished to lighten up about life –
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” (Matthew 6:25-34)
God’s got our backs.
So, be at peace this Thanksgiving holiday and take a moment to find the things that you should be thankful for, beginning with that moment that you have of life.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Be thankful and be safe.
NormsMilfordBlog 
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. Thanks for keeping in touch with your good words.