being alive

Thanksgiving and Thanksliving

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“Go through His gates, giving thanks; walk through His courts, giving praise. Offer Him your gratitude and praise His holy name. Because the Eternal is good, His loyal love and mercy will never end, and His truth will last throughout all generations” (Psalm 100:4-5, The Voice).

These days, you hear a lot about how thankful everybody is. Especially on November 26, known on most calendars as Thanksgiving Day.

What about the other 51 weeks of the year?

You find that thanksgiving works best when gratitude becomes the attitude of your heart and not something you celebrate only around holidays and special occasions.

Thanksgiving becomes thanksliving when gratitude becomes less of an act and more of a lifestyle.

You really do see more of God when you see everything as grace and a gift from His band. I’ve found that out through experience.

You really do find what you seek. If you go around expecting the worst, all you see is bad news. When you look for the good, seeing blessing in everything, you find that you being alive today is the miracle. You breathing in and breathing out is pure grace.

I confess that I’m not always good at gratitude. Often, I get caught up in the trap game of comparison, which leads either to pride or despair. Either way, you never see the entire picture of what (or who) you’re comparing yourself with.

If I do any comparing, it’s with myself. I want to be better than I was yesterday. I want to be less critical and more compassionate, less grudging and more giving, less fretful and more forgiving. I know that I’m a long way from who I used to be and am not nearly what I shall be when Jesus is through with me.

So, live thankfully. Be grateful. Don’t let Thanksgiving be one day out of the year where you eat your weight in turkey, but an attitude that carries you through all 365 days of the year.

 

Awakenings and The Gift of Being Alive

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awakenings-DI-3

“Leonard Lowe: We’ve got to tell everybody. We’ve got to remind them. We’ve got to remind them how good it is.

Dr. Sayer: How good what is, Leonard?

Leonard Lowe: Read the newspaper. What does it say? All bad. It’s all bad. People have forgotten what life is all about. They’ve forgotten what it is to be alive. They need to be reminded. They need to be reminded of what they have and what they can lose. What I feel is the joy of life, the gift of life, the freedom of life, the wonderment of life!” (Awakenings, 1990).

First of all, when did this movie get to be 25 years old? Where was I? Why wasn’t I consulted about this occurrence?

I do so love this movie. It reminds me of what a gift being alive is. It reminds me of the blessings of all those things that I daily take for granted that so many people don’t get to experience– waking up, breathing in fresh air, having the freedom to go and do as I please, being able to worship God freely.

The saying goes that every day may not be a good day, but there is good in every day. No matter how hard-pressed or stressed you are, you can still find the good if you look for it. Even in the midst of incredible loss and grief, there are blessings waiting to be found.

You have to train your eye. If you expect bad to happen, that’s all you’ll see. If you expect good, you’ll find it. You project onto others what you see in yourself (I learned that in one of my Psychology classes way back in my Union University days).

The best way is to look for God in every situation. You’ll find Him and you’ll also see whatever you’re going through in the best possible light.

As a friend of mine always says at the end of his blogs, just you think about that.

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Three More Days of 2014

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screen shot 2013-07-09 at 10.14.10 am

I really can’t believe it. Only 3 more days left in the year? 72 hours? It seems like it’s only been a month since we rang in 2014. Two, tops. Seriously, the year has flown by. But in a little over three days, we’ll be ringing in 2015 with all the usual pomp and circumstance but sadly with no Dick Clark. I still miss that guy.

2014 has been anything but expected, but it’s been good. Why? I’m still here. That’s the best reason of all to celebrate– being alive for one more day.

I’m not dying just yet. I’m just extremely grateful these days, most of all for the gift of life.

Here’s a sampling of some of what I’ve written this year:

https://oneragamuffin.wordpress.com/2014/11/25/my-commentary-on-current-events/

https://oneragamuffin.wordpress.com/2014/11/16/6882/

https://oneragamuffin.wordpress.com/2014/03/09/life-lessons-from-a-great-movie/

Those are three randomly chosen blogs that I wrote at some point during 2014.

On a side note, 2015 is the year we finally catch up to Marty McFly from Back to the Future fame. As you remember from the 1985 classic, he first went back in time to 1955 to save his parents’ marriage (and as a result, he saved himself). In the sequel, Marty goes into the future to save his kids– October 21, 2015 to be precise. Of course, there’s a third movie where Marty goes back to 1885 dressed up as a pink Clint Eastwood. But that’s not important right now.

I have to admit most of the clothing looks like the 80’s on steroids. I’m thankful that current fashion isn’t based on Back to the Future Part II. Especially not that jacket with the retractable arms. And the technology has surpassed in many ways what the movie envisioned for 2015 (like for instance the very excellent blu ray version of the Back to the Future trilogy).

I’m still waiting on the hoverboards. And I can’t wait to see what God will do next in 2015.