This Thanksgiving
This year, this Thanksgiving, I’m really going to focus on what matters most, and give thanks. Not just the run of the mill stuff that gets thrown out there, “Thank you for my home, my family, my job……… o.k., let’s eat!” I will give thanks for my six grand children (lovingly I call my Grand Creeps), not just that they are in my life, but that they are healthy, they are happy, they are doing awesome in school. They have terrific parents and are loved so much by their extended families as well as their mommies and daddies. I will give thanks for the memories I have of them, the baby moments, learning to walk, hearing Grampy for the first time. The things they said and did that made me laugh, they did to annoy me, the things that made me sad for them. The broken arms, the falls, their personal victories and their moments of defeat.
I will be thankful for all of those memories just as I’ll also be thankful for the same memories I have of my own kids who did the same things, almost in the same way. Watching their first steps, hearing their first word, (“Daddy” I’m sure it was…… someone else says “Mommy”) watching them try to eat on their own, going to kindergarten then to the first grade, and the first hurt they gave me …… when they stopped, one by one, holding Daddy’s hand in public. The continuations to the sixth grade, learning to drive, the boy they were afraid to bring over. High school graduations, buying their first cars, my daughter Felica’s bought with cancer. Daughter - Father dance and the toast given at a wedding. Their first babies. These moments were provided by the Lord to bless the lives of my wife and me. I’m grateful for them. I know that in a moments notice, without any sort of warning, the memory making by one or more of any of my kids or grandkids could come to a screeching halt. I’ve learned just recently how this can be a reality with a wave of a hand. I spend my nights thinking back on events that took place with my own kids with the life altering news on our oldest daughter a few years back. It’s funny, since I started doing this, I receive more and more memories that I’ve completely forgotten about, mostly pleasant, some sad, but memories I hold dearly each night they come to me.
Yes, I’ll still be thankful for my home, job, family etc., but I’ll really amp up my thanks with these past events in my life. I still have my brother and his wife, my niece and her family, my aunt and uncle along with my wife’s family members who narrowly escaped the 2018 inferno dubbed “The Camp Fire” that wiped out the town of Paradise at an amazing speed. Over eighty people weren’t so lucky, the pond ripple effect of that fire that altered the lives of tens of thousands of people, either directly or indirectly since then. My family will be thankful, that’s for sure.
You may wonder what’s to be thankful for. Everything might be land sliding on you at once, no end in sight, no hope of relief. In fact, you may be very angry at God, “why should I be thankful, look what he’s doing to me, thankful for all of this?….” I’m with you, been there myself many times, cursing God comes easy. But try this, find one thing to be thankful for and don’t just say it in your mind, proclaim it, out loud, with a vengeance! Even if the only thing you can think of is something that hasn’t gone wrong yet, shout it out (it doesn’t need to be in public). God does not bring bad things on you. Satan is the liar and the deceiver who likes to stir up trouble in your life. Satan was given the authority to operate in this world, he’s is constantly lying to us to have us believe that God is not for us. Yes, most of us choke and flip out, cursing God, screaming at him. I know this, I’m one of the biggest offenders. Then I settle down after a few days and ask for his forgiveness and wonder what that was all about.
Why shout it out, that is, your one blessing you are thankful for? Satan can’t read your thoughts, it may seem like it, but in reality he only knows your day to day situations as well as your history, and he feeds on those along with his punk assed demons. Then he adds to your bad luck just to keep you tripped up and slamming the Lord. So, SHOUT IT OUT! Let the liar know you are thankful to God for a certain blessing. The shout will drive him away, especially if YOU amp it up a bit and add “GET BEHIND ME SATAN!” or liar, puke, jerk devil, whatever you want to call him. Do it once then do it again. It gets easier each time.
I really hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving. Not all people will. Remember them this year, even if you just pray for them. Remember what you have, take good care of it, roast your game.
Pick Up Your Jawbone.
Slay Your Philistines!