Giving Thanks

 

I find it so difficult to wrap my head around the fact that Thanksgiving is now behind us. We spend so much time in preparation, cooking, cleaning, planning, sharing all the things that we are thankful for; that it is hard to think that it went by so quickly. I have seen so many friends sharing daily all of the things that they are thankful for, I jumped on that band wagon but got busy and forgot to share those last few days. I wonder now that thanksgiving is over if that spirit of thankfulness will continue or will be step back in the day to day of forgetting that even in the little things we are to be thankful. Even when things are tough we are still to be thankful. I think about Job and the fact that he lost everything and yet was still thankful. God tells us in his word, "In eveything give thanks."

 

I find myself more this year than in previous reflecting more on this idea of being thankful and giving thanks. Not just because of thanksgiving but because it is what God comanded us to do, be thankful. When you look at thanksgiving, a day in which that majority of our nation pauses to reflect on being thankful and then spends the next evening and weekend trampling people for sales you wonder what our nation is truly thankful for if anything at all. We fill our home with "stuff" trinkets, and toys, all these fancy things. We demand the best, we are picky and particular, we want a fortune to be spent on things that we don't really need. We make threats to exchange, or take it back if we don't like something given by a friend or family. Thankfulness should be extended past thanksgiving into our every day, and as we move into the season of celebrating the greatest gift of all, how will we show our thankfulness? By going into debt buying things we don't need, toys our children will forget about in a week.

 

 How will we show our thankfullness? We want to teach our children how to be thankful always, not having to tell them to say "even if you don't like it, say you love it, and say thank you." Instead of teaching them "Give thanks no matter what, every gift is a blessing."

 

I cannot help my brain is scrambled and my heart is burdened over giving thanks. We have so much when there are those in the world with so little. We have things that we could live without, things we don't need, and we forget what is most important in this life.....and it is nothing that you can ever own or buy from a store, its not a phone, a ring, or a pair of boots. My goal is to treat every day with thanksgiving and stop focusing on the "things" of this life, but the promises of God to always provide our every "need."