It’s November… my month of birth about a zillion years ago. At this advanced age, I consider myself a pragmatic, realistic, conservative… both business-wise and personal-wise. I believe in following the rules… well, except the ones specified by those little numerical signs on the side of roads… and it annoys me greatly when other people.
I say all that to say that even though in these post-COVID, politically liberal times when most of the rules I grew up respecting are falling by the wayside and Twila’s and my retirement investments have shrunk to the point that a good fast-food meal could deplete them, I still feel like I have an awful lot for which to be thankful. Even the fact that some long-forgotten English teacher beat into me to say “for which to be thankful” instead of “to be thankful for.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah… we all know… well, at least those of you who know us or do business with us directly know that I have an amazing wife, best friend and business partner all rolled into one. Twila has put up with me for over 30 years and to the amazement of most we have spent nearly every minute together during that time. We live together, play together and work together. As I write this, her desk is less than ten feet away and normally she would be sitting right there next to me, and I am beyond thankful for her and all the many roles she plays in my life.
Another huge blessing, we have some incredibly special friends that ran into some challenging health issues this past year with no family to step in and help. Sadly for them, years ago Twila and I adopted them as part of our family and now they are stuck with us doing our best to look out for them. God blessed us with a few resources and a flexible schedule and now I know why. Silly me… I thought it was so I could cut back on work at this point in my life, be lazy and enjoy my photography and writing more. But He had more important plans in mind. In fairness, Twila is doing all the heavy lifting and I am doing most of the planning and worrying… which has pretty much always been my forté.
Some of you are probably aware that I walk two to four miles a day. I’m incredibly thankful that my health is such that I can easily do that at nearly 70. One of the reasons I enjoy my walks so much is it gives me time to think and pray. I don’t thank God often enough for the great life I have lived and for any years He sees fit to leave me around. For those of you annoyed by my faith… sorry… get over it or turn the page. Personally, I feel sorry for you. Who do you have to thank for the blessings in your life… luck? I have no doubt God has blessed me so I can be of use to others. As mentioned… I have an amazing wife… a tolerably amazing Big Brother… and a beyond amazing son, daughter-in-law and grandson. And, yes, I know you will be surprised to know that I even have a few friends who can put up with me and bless my life. Hopefully, in my many years, I have found ways to be a useful blessing to these important folks in my life.
I say all this to say that right now is a really good time to think of all the things you have to be thankful for. Or should that be… all the things for which you should be thankful. Either way, I would encourage you to spend the month of November creating your list of Thanksgiving Resolutions. That’s what I am beginning today and on Thanksgiving Day, wherever Twila and I wind up celebrating, I plan to invest a few minutes in prayer saying “Thank You” to God for allowing me to live in His world and have such a great life and, most of all, to be useful to others. And just maybe those folks might take a minute to be thankful for me. If that happens… if one prayer of thanks goes up in my name… my life has had value.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
