Grateful Gifts
Thanksgiving is just around the corner, WOW this year has gone by fast! I’m not sure about you, but Thanksgiving isn’t the only time that I show gratitude or give thanks for moments, people, opportunities, health and or God’s beautiful No’s. Every night when I say my prayers, I will pray for those who are heavy on my heart or asked for prayers. Then I give thanks to God for all of the ways he has guided and provided in my life.
When my daughter was little, we would lay in bed and say our prayers every night. She would add long lists of people that continually kept getting bigger, LOL, it was the sweetest time of my day. One night I said Tori let’s Thank God for our home that provides a roof over our heads, for water and electricity, for the car that gets us back and forth to where we need to go, and for my job that provides us money for food, shelter, clothing and a healthy life. It was like God was telling me to stop wanting more and be grateful in the here and now. The very next day I went to work and my boss pulled me into her office. She said I want to give you a raise for everything you do for us. I STARTED to cry and I’m crying now just retelling the story. There is a saying that says “The More Grateful You Are, The More You Are Given.” God didn’t answer a prayer I was asking for he was gracing me with more of what I was grateful for. Such a blessing!
Almost daily I feel someone weighing on my heart or mind. Sometimes I might be feeling low so it helps me to reach out to friends, family or even strangers to let them know I’m thinking about them. It may just be to send them a quote that I saw that made me think of them. It could be that I want to send them words of encouragement. I might just be checking in on them or I am sending them a message of gratitude for being in my life. Even though the message is for them it lifts me up and reminds me of how lucky I am to have these beautiful people in my life.
One of the things I work the hardest at and that I am the most thankful for at this stage in my life is my health. I look around at most people my age (cough.. cough.. in our 50’s) and realize how lucky I am. I don’t take any medications, I am healthy, fit and full of energy in body and mind. I try my best to eat healthy, I rarely drink alcohol and I hit the gym 5-6 days a week for weightlifting or Crossfit, plus walk at least a mile daily. I credit this to good family genes and a healthy lifestyle. SO - SO GRATEFUL!
Lastly, life never goes the way we plan, I like to refer back to the song “Unanswered Prayers”. There may have been opportunities, relationships, or social norms that we envisioned for ourselves. We prayed for them, we told God we would change if we got them, we made wishes for them. I like to call this “The Beautiful No.” It’s not that we didn’t deserve it, or work hard enough for it. It’s that he knew we deserved something different, something unique, something better, a life he built just for us to live. For every beautiful no, every heartbreak, every missed opportunity, every “why me” and every struggle I have overcome, I am forever Grateful. Those no’s help us realize that we have so much to be grateful for. I believe that even on the hardest days, during our biggest struggles, we can find the grateful in our lives.
So grateful for you all!
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