Can you believe it is almost Thanksgiving? Wasn’t it just yesterday we began practicing writing 2024 ahead of the new year?
Grandma Jones, God rest her soul, often said “Days go slow, but time goes fast.”Amen to that!
Next week will be the fourth Thursday in November and the annual Thanksgiving feast.
We will probably have a couple of observances this year. My Uncle Horace, my Daddy’s baby brother, is to host the annual Deal gathering. Mama’s family hasn’t decided about their gathering just yet. My sister and brother, brother-in-law and my darling niece and handsome nephew are supposed to come for the actual day next Thursday. It will be good to have all of them in.
Thanksgiving is a unique holiday that teaches us to be thankful and content with whatever we have. We live in a land of plenty and in the most blessed nation on earth. Our worst day in America is as good as it ever gets in many places in the world.
I encourage you to take a moment and make a list of all the things you are thankful for.
Here are some things I am thankful for:
• I am thankful to a gracious and loving God Who is so very good to me, in spite of myself.
• I am thankful for the little church I serve and for the privilege to live in a country where I have the freedom to worship as I please. The folks there are very good to me.
• I am thankful for my family - mama, my sister and her husband, my baby brother and my niece and nephew. I am thankful for sweet and precious memories - how they linger. I am thankful to have had a good Daddy who was always in my world and who lived out a good example for me to follow. His are big shoes to fill. I am privileged to have known all of my grandparents except one — my maternal grandfather. I was privileged for a time to be able to work in an area where people still remembered him and told me stories of him. I was especially blessed to know my Grandma Jones and my Grandma and Granddaddy Deal and my great-grandmother, Anna Tyre Rogers.
• I am thankful for my boss, who pays me for something I love to do. I am also thankful for all of my coworkers for putting up with me.
• I am thankful for all those people who help me keep up with everything. They include all the various boards, elected officials, support staff and my sources.
• I am thankful for my friends. Believe it or not, I have one or two. I am especially thankful for the one over on Johnson Street. They have been a blessing and I appreciate their contributions to my life.
