What are YOU Thankful for?

It’s the most “wonderful time of the year”…right?  Sometimes I feel that the hustle and bustle of this wintery season becomes overwhelming and many times covers up the whole reason we celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas!  We get caught up in the music, food and parties, that we forget the real “reason for the season.”  I feel like I look forward to November and December every year, and each year they are over so quickly that I never spent anytime focusing on what the season was meant for in the first place. 

Christmas is on its way, but why don’t we start with Thanksgiving?  I love to enjoy Thanksgiving treats, smells, and experiences, but this year I’m reminded that I need to pay special attention to all of the many blessings I have to be thankful for.  In this past year alone God has given me hundreds of things to be thankful for, and if I worked at it, I bet I could develop a lengthy list right now of all of the things I have to give thanks.  BUT…. I’ve decided to make it easier than that!  Today, I want to challenge you to join me in a “November Thanks Challenge.”  From now until Thanksgiving Day, November 24^th, will you join me in recognizing something you’re especially thankful for?  What you do with your list is completely up to you.  In our home, we are going to build a turkey using Caleb’s handprint as feathers and write on each of the feathers different things we’re thankful for.  Perhaps for you, the turkey doesn’t really work with your “motif”, but you can write down something different each day in a journal.  Maybe you’ll even be so bold as to post your “thanks” on facebook or twitter each day.  (Talk about accountability!)  Tag the person you’re thankful for (if it’s an individual on that day) and they may be blown away!  Recognizing one thing that you’re thankful for, over the course of 24 days should be especially easy, and once you get started I bet you’ll see how hard it is to only choose “one” thing per day!  Whatever way you decide to record your “thanks”, let’s join together and spend this Thanksgiving season focusing on what it was meant for originally…. Thanks.