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Count Your Blessings: Name Them One By One


Preparations for Thanksgiving are in full swing.  I walk by cans of pumpkin pie, brown sugar and all the fixins' when I buy milk.  (Speaking of...this is the time of year I stock up on baking supplies.  Sugar and everything else is going up so now is a good time to get them!)

Orange, yellow and brown decorations are now on clearance with the Halloween decorations as Christmas crowds them all out.

But thanksgiving isn't a food or a decoration or something to buy at the store.  

In our easy come and easy go culture...do we really get thankfulness?  

When I ate canned beans growing up,  I couldn't help but think about the hard work of planting and harvesting.  

As I sit in my living room, I'm thankful for the hard work that it took to do the walls and the floors.  The time and the sacrifice the men in my life gave to make this room.

I'm thankful and humbled when I get my paycheck and it drives me to work harder to make sure that I'm earning every penny of it.

Mostly, I'm thankful for my family and friends in my life.  But as I count those blessings-I remember the hard work that it has taken and will take to maintain those close ties.

As I think about it...it seems like thankfulness is a choice to make and the depth of our thankfulness dependent on the depth of the hard work and/or sacrifice or cost.  

The sacrifice of my God.  The sacrifice of my family. 

The hard work, endurance, dedication and patient planting and sowing.  The staying.

Isn't this what Thanksgiving is all about?

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