I've seen these efforts, apparently, of giving thanks for 30 days. Two things happened for me that are completely normal: 1) I didn't get the memo; 2) I'm too impatient for 30 days of such.
So, I've compacted my list into one day's thought. In no particular order, I'm grateful for, thankful for these things:
1) I am grateful for, as someone said, another trip around the sun. It has been a difficult year in terms of health, and it is on-going, but I am grateful for more tries.
2) I am glad for my wife, Mary, who has been a stalwart (which is a big word that sounds great, though I'm not exactly sure what it means). I know this, I couldn't do any of this, whatever this is, without her.
3) I'm grateful for the whacky plan that had Jesus coming to die for me, personally, taking my nails, my spear, my crown of thorns and most assuredly my many sins. Without that blessed event, no type this morning.
4) I'm grateful for Jason, our son. Jason is the most creative person I've ever personally met. I hope he knows how proud of his career I am. I probably don't tell him enough. I'm proud of his efforts with his church, and I'm particularly proud of him as a dad.
5) Shanna is a rock. A rock. She's taken the worst of what life has to offer and churned it up and made butter out of sour mess.
6) Carrie, our youngest, is still finding herself in a lot of ways. But I'm proud she's found a job that helps her realize some dreams, and I pray she finds herself next.
7) I'm thankful for all our grandchildren, blessed be their names: Mia, Karli, Gabe, Parker, Livvy, Gavin, and Emma.
8) I'm thankful for the opportunities God has granted us, opportunities to make a small difference. I never, ever dreamed this would be the case.
9) I'm thankful for vehicles that have been good to us, though they like us are becoming worn.
10) I'm thankful for rescue pets and rescue pet organizations. We have too many pets. We do. But when someone recently asked me if I thought the pets might have something to do with my physical ailments, I said I would rather die than give up on them. I meant it.
11) I'm particularly thankful for Logan, a 14-year-old terrier mix who has been with us all her life. She's getting hard of hearing, and she doesn't see all that well, and she's obsessed with treats after she goes outside, but she's Logan. I'm grateful for our time. Who knows if either of us will see another thanksgiving.
12) I'm grateful for Rebecca, our daughter-in-law, a young woman of God who has shown her talents in her own right, and I'm grateful for our son-in-law Blaine, who I will remember for giving up his Saints season tickets because he had a new born and for Florida together twice.
13) I'm grateful for the past, turkey and dressing in Lizelia, Miss., with my mother. In many ways, Thanksgiving was more wonderful than Christmas out there. All of us were in one place at one time, there was so much food (she even cooked spaghetti because Carrie loved her spaghetti), and then there was napping to be done for she only got a couple channels. I miss it to this moment.
14) I'm glad for extended family, for my cousin June and her husband, Paul; for my Aunt Bernece and her kids. Even for the thousands of cousins I have scattered from sea to shining sea.
15) I'm glad for my Saints. It's all come down to this. All that sports stuff I did for 34 years, and I have two teams and semi-eternal hopes and dreams.
16) I'm glad for those colleagues (a word I never use and don't especially like for some reason) in ministry who put up with all that they put up with so that the Gospel can move along to those who truly need to hear it.
17) I'm thankful for the opportunity we have this evening to hand out hot cocoa at a local department store to those crazies who will line up in this weather to get into a store the size of a mini-van. But we're hoping we show we care.
18) I'm grateful for the friends I made in prison ministry, and I miss each and every one.
19) I'm grateful for every experience that has brought me to this day. Good and bad, they've shaped me. I know I'm not all God would have me be. I know I still fight sin. But I know the sin nature that I was born into is gone because of what He did.
20 I'm grateful for every church that has proceeded the three we now serve, those wonderful people we miss.
21) I really am grateful for the Bishop we now serve, and for her vision and her effort and her family. She has meant a lot to me, already.
22) I'm thankful for, come to think of it, for that other life, that career thingee, in journalism. It was wonderful while it existed.
23) I'm thankful that I never had a job, not really. I never did anything I truly didn't want to do in all this life in terms of "work." Ministry and writing and journalism all have been great loves. Not all get to say that.
24) I'm glad I had the chance to know Frankie, Tweety, Scrappy, Buttons and Squeeker. Miss you guys still, every single day.
25) I'm thankful for the parsonage in which we live. Big and, well, big. If the doorknobs worked ...
26) I'm glad for the money we have, which is enough when I don't do stupid things.
27) I'm thankful for the selflessness of our churches, and for the chance we had yesterday to deliver a huge box of things.
28) I'm glad for whatever abilities God has given me. It is obvious I've never been a great writer, but I've written with all my heart. Yesterday we stopped at a sewing shop on the way back from delivering the basket. Mary went inside and seemed to stay forever. Finally the store owner, a delightful woman named Anne, came out. She had me step out of the truck, came around and said, "Yes, that's his face." I was alarmed for a second till she told me she reads me every Sunday in her paper and knows I'm led by the Holy Ghost.
29) I'm grateful that I'm probably read more than I'm listened to in two local newspapers in a Sunday religion/life column
30) In the end, God, whose Word tells me he created me a masterpiece. Although I know I'm a conflicted, sometimes nicked and broken, total mess, He uses me to touch others. Don't know why. Don't even know how. But I actually, absolutely believe he does. There are those who don't like me, I suppose. There are certainly those who don't understand me. But God does. That's enough. In the end, God.
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