Although Christmas is my favorite time of year, Thanksgiving has become a really close second! I love it because it is a day set aside before the hustle and bustle starts. It is more about family and friends, being grateful, and of course - food! I went to a Thanksgiving party over the weekend and the food was so good. My eyes lit up as I saw the spread lined up (a sign of a true food lover) and as usual my eyes were bigger than my stomach and I was miserable afterwards - but I have to admit it was worth it! I know that the food and the parties and seeing family and friends are all part of this time of year and I am going to love every minute of it!
I was reminded over the weekend how good life really is and how we must savor the moment and make sure our lives are lived in an active state and not merely as a bystander. I will admit that I can get caught up in the petty things sometimes and allow stupid things to really distract me from the present moment. A good example would be yesterday morning. I am almost embarassed to tell this story, but it does prove my point - and hopefully someone will be able to relate! As I was getting ready for church, I could not figure out what to wear. It is time for a major overhaul in the jeans area and everytime I go to my closet, I am not excited about the selections looking back at me. As the clock kept ticking away I had to just go with my final choice but it was not good, and neither was my mood at that point either. I actually allowed a bad pair of jeans to affect my mood and my outlook on the day. Yes, I know - PETTY - but we all know that when you look good, you feel good, and in that moment I wasn't feeling too good! I made it to church and as the church service started I almost laughed at what I had allowed to happen to me. My inner thoughts were something like - Kevin, you are 36 years old! Are you really going to get distracted by what you saw in the mirror this morning? Get over it! So I did and of course, the message that morning at church was on gratefulness vs complaining - Yes, God, I hear You loud and clear!
I have said it before, but life truly is about living and there are hundreds of distractions that comes at us every day. Some that could slightly get us off track and some that come at us like a brick wall. Although we cannot always control what happens in our lives, we can control our response to it. Whether it is something petty like that driver that cuts in front of us on the interstate, a wrong order at the drive-thru, or a bad jeans crisis - or something big like an unexpected job loss, a broken relationship, or financial hardship - how we respond is really up to us. Obviously I have not mastered this skill, but since life is a constant work-in-progress, I am learning and hope to react better the next time around.
With Thanksgiving just a few days away, I hope that all of us will choose to look at our lives through the lens of gratefulness and make conscious choices to let life's petty distractions fall by the wayside. See it for what it really is and move on. Life truly can be good and focusing on the bigger picture helps us to keep things in perspective.
And yes, I will be buying new jeans this week to put that fashion disaster to rest!
Today I am grateful for: 1. Meeting new people and the great food at the Thanksgiving party 2. Encouraging church service Sunday 3. New book I'm reading 4. Reminder of gratefulness5. All the rain we are getting today
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