Finding ways to be thankful

Thankfulness is more than a day set aside once a year when we get together and pretend to be happy, it is a way of being realistic and understanding of ourselves and of others. Thanksgiving day, which is two days hence in the United States, is a wonderful way of getting families together and for celebrating their love for each others.

Thankfulness in general, however, is something to strive for every day, even though it often hard to do, but it can become a habit as well as grumbling and complaining can become a habit. Most of all, the number one reason for being thankful, is being thankful for simply being who we are.

We are unique, a creation made by God and like no other. Our thankfulness increases when we accept who we are without grumbling and next, our thankfulness overflows when we seek to do the will of God. To understand that we must also understand that he created us for a specific purpose known only to Him, and when we accept that, what reason do we have to be unhappy?

PS:
The image. What do those two gingerbread kids have to be thankful for? They are not real.They are over twenty years old and were made to illustrate a children's story, the title I've forgotten. They were drawn from the outline of a cookie cutter and wears pasted on clothes. None of that is important, but what is important is the delight I find on their face. They are happy because they are loved. And why are they loved? I remember the happiness I had when creating them. For an hour or so that day I somehow managed to shrink back into being a little girl playing with her paper dolls. I was happy when I created them.

What does that have with thanksgiving today? Nothing but one important thought has now surfaced that tells me when I was a little girl I never had real paper dolls. I had to cut figures out of the Sears Roebuck Catalog and pretend. Oh, how I wanted real paper dolls. Many years later I found a way of creating my own. And although what seems like a silly incident, is not silly at all. Nothing that carries with it tales from out of our childhood is ever silly. They are important puzzle pieces toward our own knowledge of our self. And out of that, comes healthy thoughts, and healthy thoughts is what this blog undertakes.