Count your blessings. Some people never need to be told to do that because gratitude is ingrained in the DNA of their character, while others have to be encouraged constantly because complaint is a part of theirs. Which are you?
Wait, wait, come back! Don’t give up on this article because I called you out – consider what I am asking.

Do we not have much to be thankful for?

Take a minute to think about that question and then write down everything which comes to mind about which you are thankful. I’ll go first.

I’m thankful for what I have seen: The majesty of the Rockies. The power of Niagara Falls. The smile on my wife’s face. The colors of a rainbow. The soaring of an Eagle and the glory of the rising and setting sun.

I’m thankful for what I have heard: The words of the preacher who told me that Jesus loves Me. The song of the Cardinal. The roar of the surf. The crunch of fresh fallen snow under my boots. The laughter of my wife. The playful antics of my children and grandchildren. The silence of a calm morning, and the noise of a windy one, and the clang of a rope gently beating against the flagpole to which an American flag is tethered.

I’m thankful for the fragrance of Honeysuckle and Wisteria. Rain. Hot apple pies and a good steak.

I’m thankful that I woke up to see another day. That I have a home to live in. A car to get me places and the freedom to go wherever I want.

I’m thankful for my health.

That’s a short list of the things I am thankful for.

But what if I had cancer?

What if I was blind, or deaf?

What if I was imprisoned in a hospital room too weak to go anywhere?

What if everyone I have ever loved was gone and I was all alone?

Could I be thankful in circumstances like those? Could you?

Should we let our grief cancel our gratitude?

The fact is, that we have innumerable reasons for which to be thankful and one God worthy of our gratitude. Some of you are hurting this season. You hurt because something or someone you had is missing from your life this year. To be thankful right now, you may need to see the world and your life through a different lens. Consider George Matheson, Scottish minister and hymnwriter of the late 19th century known as “the blind preacher” who had all but completely lost his eyesight by age 18. Once he prayed:’ My God, I have never thanked you for my “thorn.” I have thanked you a thousand times for my roses, but never once for my “thorn”.

This I know, each of us will eventually know the grief of loss. My mother left this earth about a month before the towers fell in NYC on 9/11. I miss her voice. Her laugh. The way she made a bad day perfect and the way she always brought the family together at this time of year. I grieve, but I’m also grateful.

After all, she could have been someone else’s mother instead of mine – God gave her to me and me to her.
My friends, because of His goodness there is a harvest of praise awaiting the Lord.

He has provided seed to the sower. He has provided work and varying degrees of wealth to all who do it. But He has also provided priceless things like His patience, His mercy, His grace, His forgiveness, His salvation, His acceptance, His guidance, His purpose for our lives, His presence in good times and bad, and His promises both for today and tomorrow. For these things, a great harvest of praise is in store for the Lord, and His people will praise Him in days to come, when we will see Him as He is – face to face. Until then, He is still worthy of praise and gives us much to be thankful for every second of our lives.

May your season of Thanks and Giving – be full of reflection on the goodness of God and His many blessings in your life.

Talk again soon!

Brother Rich