A Day Of Thanks

Psalm 100:4-5
Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him; bless His name, for the LORD Is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting, and His faithfulness to all generations.

On this day, we stop and turn our attention, as a country, to God for all the blessings He has given to us.
With each passing year, each holiday that rolls around, I find myself being less thankful for things and more thankful for family and friends.

As much as I hate raking leaves and dealing with all the "fall" stuff that comes with having multiple trees, I found myself in the backyard yesterday full of hope and peace and contentment. (Even though I was raking leaves). I was grateful for the simple fact of being alive. For still being in love with my wife.....more than that, I am more in love with her today than ever before. I looked around our yard and I could see little boys playing baseball, basketball and every other sport that involved a ball. I could see where the old garage use to be and how they turned it into the "Wildcats Club House." The neighborhood kids would come over and spend the night in that old garage, but what times they had.

I saw the flower bed where Chance, our dog, use to dig up whatever was planted. Mom would come out her back door all flustered and yelling at Chance about how she was going to give her to another family. Of course Mom never would have done that, but it was all part of the game that the two of them played.

Gazing at the grill on the patio, I could almost smell the countless hot dogs, hamburgers, steaks and chicken that had given their all. Usually such food meant family time. All of us gathered around the table, holding hands and giving thanks to God for each other and His provision for our family.

There are two old wooden lawn chairs sitting on the patio. Here Vicki and I would sit at the end of the work day and talk of what ever happened to be on our minds. Decisions that we needed to make concerning our jobs, or troubles that the family was having. There has been a lot of prayers offered up from those two chairs. Some of the best times were just the two of us sitting in silence, holding each others hand while we watched the night sky.

This morning as I am posting this entry, my wife is in the kitchen putting Tom Turkey in the oven. The counter is full of pies and cake. In the bedroom down the hall, my son and his wife are sleeping. There is a sense of peace that permeates our home. The feeling and thought that my family is once again together brings great comfort to me. We will share a meal today, and more than food will be the conversation, the laughter and the memories that God has allowed us to create. From that storehouse of great riches, we will pull those memories out to once again share them among ourselves. God has brought two other lives into the mix of our family.......Tyler, my grand son, and Ashley, my grand daughter. As we share our memories, they will be pulled into the story of our family. They will look on with wide eyed amazement as I tell about their Dad when he was little boy. They will hear, once again, the stories about the events that have defined us as a family. For this, I am grateful today.

With all the love I possess, I wish for you and your family the happiest of Thanksgiving.
God on you today....
mb