What Are You Thankful For?
I know the title is poor grammar but it’s still better than “For What Are You Thankful” or “What Are the Things For Which You Are Thankful?” I am a grammar perfectionist but sometimes it’s just going a little too far. This is one of those times. So – that’s the question on this Tuesday before Thanksgiving – “What are you thankful for?”
For myself, I am thankful first of all today that I am once again sitting in an airport waiting to board a flight to Virginia. This one is for fun – not a funeral like the last trip (see previous post about my hero who died) – but I am still thankful for the same thing, namely that I am able to make the trip, that I can afford to buy the ticket, and that I have people who are important enough to me that I will take time off from work and spend a good amount of money to fly off to see them. There was a time in my life when I either had to drive or just stay home and, quite frankly, I keep expecting that time to catch up with me again.
Being thankful is a state of mind as well as a spiritual experience. What I mean by this is that when we are grateful for something, this is a feeling that comes from the spirit; when we say that we are grateful, it becomes an intellectual process. We feel gratefulness, we say to ourselves “we are grateful,” and then we have to allow our brains to move those words into our mouths so that they can be spoken out loud. This is how we let the world know that we are thankful for something and it’s also how we express these deep feelings.
I am going to spend Thanksgiving with my sister and her husband in Virginia. When we sit down for the wonderful
Thanksgiving dinner Ginny and all of us have prepared, Joe always gives us all the opportunity to say what we are thankful for this year. It’s a great time around the table as we all get to let our loved ones know the things that have happened to us during the year and how we feel about them. There is no better way to begin Thanksgiving dinner and it always occurs to me that we should start every meal, in fact, every day that way. Putting ourselves in a thankful mode helps us to focus on the positive side of life and that is the way to live a healthy life. Focusing on the negative is a sure-fire way to be unhealthy and unhappy; it’s really difficult to keep thinking of the negative side of life when we are saying “thank you” on a regular basis.
So, tomorrow, when you gather around your Thanksgiving table, take a few moments to share with everyone the things that you are thankful for and add them to the list when those thanks are offered to God.
Wishing you a Happy Turkey Day and many things for which to be thankful (how’s that grammar?) . . .
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Susan is a professional writer and she has written her own book on her experience in the ordination process of the Episcopal Church. Lady Father is now available on Amazon.com. Register below to receive her newsletter and important emails and don’t forget to read more of Susan’s writings on her Facebook page a https://facebook.com/ladyfather.
