In this season of Thanksgiving, I’m thinking about life and what I am thankful for. 

I am thankful for medicine that helps me with genetic dispositions and past poor choices; for living in the 21st century where we have CAT Scans and MRI machines to see inside our bodies; for researchers, doctors, and medical professionals who keep trying to figure out how to save lives; for cancer treatments that give us extra time; surgery that fixes what has gone wrong. 

I am thankful that leaves are green, yellow, and red, and not gray; for the warmth of a fire; for living in a time and place where indoor plumbing is standard; for the beauty of a deer moving through the woods; for squirrels that move like acrobats; for cows that put on weight. 

I am thankful that my amazing grandson smiles when he sees me; for the laughter of toddlers; for disposable diapers; for snuggly naps when Pa Pa and grandson fall into delicious sleep. 

I am thankful for a church that loves me; for gifts God has given me; for more fulfillment and joy in serving him than I ever dreamed possible; for miracles of changed hearts; for the chance to see up close God taking broken people, and making them whole. 

I am thankful for full moons on crisp winter nights; for stars spilled out on the night sky like glittering diamonds; for the flash of a meteor entering the earth’s atmosphere; for the brightness of Venus twinkling in the evening sky. 

I am thankful to live in the age of transportation; for being to fly across oceans or continents to see what my forebearers could only imagine; for being able to drive to Florida in a day instead of making a three week trip by horse; for a truck with heat, and air, and heated leather seats.

 I am thankful for sight and hearing; to be able to read and enter stories of the past; to hear and have my soul stirred by music; for the ability to touch and feel the softness of skin or the hardness of a callous; for a sense of smell, to be lured by freshly baked bread or to be warned that liver is on the loose. 

I am thankful for my country, divided though she may be; for the freedom to vote in secret my conscience; to speak my mind without fear of arrest; to freely gather to worship my God; to write and publish, never worrying that I will be arrested for my words. 

I am thankful for my family; for my wife who loves me in my most hard-headed times; for my children, who all have careers and futures, who still enjoy spending time with their Dad; for my sons-in-law and my daughter-in-law, who accept my eccentricities as part of the whole package. 

I am thankful for faith, hope, and love; faith that was nurtured in me by my mother, that bloomed by the grace of God, and that sustains me on the most difficult of days; hope, that no matter how bad things get, Jesus has always got me, the hope of eternal life, hope to see my Savior face to face and one day hear those words of grace; love that cared enough for me to offer God’s only son on Calvary, love that wants the best for me, love that is so vast it stretches to eternity. 

I am thankful daily signs of God’s grace; for impossible situations working out; for words that leap off the pages of the Bible right into my soul; for breaths of cool air; for the daily rising of the sun; for the cooling of anger and the rising of joy. 

I am thankful for this life, this amazing gift that God has given me and you; for every trip around the sun; for awakening each day knowing that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Happy Thanksgiving.