“Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer.”
–Maya Angelou, American poet and author

First, my annual list of some of the things for which I’m thankful. Then, a few thoughts on gratitude.

During this Thanksgiving week, I’m particularly thankful for:

• My faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Without faith, I’ve got nothing.

• Family, both mine and my church family.

• A strong marriage.

• Being born in the USA. I’m one of the millions of lottery winners!

• First responders, nurses, and teachers–all of them dedicated . . . and underpaid!

• North Carolina. From the ocean’s shore to the trout streams in the mountains, a fisherman’s paradise.

• College football, even though the powers to be are doing what they can to ruin it.

• The man who invented pickleball.

• Good health. May we not wait until we lose it to appreciate it.

• Friends–I’ve acquired so many new ones in the last year and a half.

• Books, and those who read them.

• Laughter. If you’ve ever been in a season of life when you couldn’t laugh, recapturing it is wonderful.

• Everyone on my author’s email subscription list. Thank you for sticking with me!

• Independent bookstores–the “David” trying to slay “Goliath.” We know who Goliath is, right?

• Fly fishing.

• Coffee.

• Grace. In my opinion, it’s the most beautiful word in the Bible.

• Healthy and decorous debate.

• And, of course, Ocean Spray cranberry sauce!

I started writing this blog over five years ago, when we were in the midst of the Covid scare. I wrote about many things–Covid, politics, and sports, to name a few. Gradually, my posts morphed into what I hope are more uplifting, positive words about our lives.

On a macro level, how can we not be grateful for living in this country, notwithstanding its political and social shortcomings? On a micro level, we’re all blessed. Pause before you dig in this Thanksgiving Day and look at the bounty on your table.

Is life perfect? Of course not. We all experience illness, loss, grief, and other challenges. But I believe what doesn’t kill us really does make us stronger, and that there’s an omniscient and omnipresent divine power, God, who watches over us. We were never promised life would be easy, only that our Father would be there for us, and carry us when we couldn’t take another step. In fact, Jesus taught that lesson repeatedly to his disciples and other followers.

I love the story of the healing of the ten lepers, found in Luke 17:11-19. Normally isolated and shunned, they went to show themselves to the priests when Jesus commanded them to do so. By faith they responded, and their faith is what made them well. But only one of them had an attitude of gratitude–the one who returned to Jesus and threw himself at Jesus’ feet as a gesture of thanksgiving.

Don’t miss the fact that he was a Samaritan, a member of a people who were a “mixed race” of foreign blood and practitioners of idol worship. Judeans and Galileans went out of their way to avoid going through Samaria as they traveled back and forth.

There’s a lesson for us there. A downcast member of a hated tribe, an individual afflicted with an awful disease, was the only one who expressed his gratitude. Can we–a blessed people living in the greatest country in the world–not do the same? Can we not stop and give thanks for all that a gracious God has given us? Not just the week of Thanksgiving, but every day of the year?

I’m going to try. I hope you will too.