What would a mommy blog be without a Thanksgiving post during Thanksgiving Week?

I apologize in advance for caving to the pressure, but I am certain that it is both equally natural and necessary to spend at least a few paragraphs of one’s time waxing poetical on gratitude in the shadow of this fast approaching holiday. Should you rather reflect on something else this week, fed up with the many thanksgiving posts, feel free to move on.  In my humble opinion, however, this post may actually be worth the read. I’ve decided to offer a bit of myself here. Whooooooooa!

Thanksgiving has prompted my thinking a lot about thankfulness and its far reach into our lives. We spend countless hours teaching our children to say “please” and “thank you”, to appreciate other’s kind gestures and ultimately to thank God for each day’s blessings. Time and again, we are reminded of how blessed we are as a country, how unappreciative of the advantages that we have and how hesitant to share we really are.  We are constantly prompted to be thankful, to be grateful.    Even our friends in the blogosphere encourage our thankfulness with grateful posts and thankful memes.

Being the all or nothing kind of woman that I am, however, I figured that personally I’d be better off spending this post exploring a spirit of gratitude, rather than musing over a list of the things for which I am most grateful. Lists just tend to stick to paper for me. Write it and forget it, so to speak.  And anyhow, it’s probable that my list would be entirely different from your own and pretty boring.  

Now, I’ll admit it. Earlier yesterday afternoon, I was already forming a list of “things for which I am grateful” in my mind which I intended to post on Thanksgiving.   In further reflecting, however, I thought it far better and far more productive to think aloud with you all about an all-embracing and life-encompassing sort of gratitude. After all, I can be grateful for this blessing or that, but how well do I measure up when it comes to actually living in appreciation for all that life is, for the people around me, and for all that I am and do?   What exactly does it mean to live in a spirit of constant gratitude and thanksgiving?

Please, bear with me here.  For as many years as I have been listening to and meditating on the Gospel and countless homilies, and preaching to myself about this through an interior dialogue, I am yet but a novice in the gratitude department.  You may even be thinking: “Well, tell me who isn’t? “  And tell you I will.  I’d better, since it is the point of this entire post.  

There are few people in life who truly live in a spirit of utter and unending gratitude. Do you know them? I do. They are THE HAPPY PEOPLE! 

The Happy People are the kind of people who see the good in everything. They sift through the evil, brush it aside and joke about it, unimportant as it is, not dwelling on it or allowing its tentacles into the sanctuary of their souls. They prefer to be thankful for the good.

The Happy People view every challenge as a success in the making.  They embrace every adversity as a gift and the potential for greater happiness. They laugh in the face of trials and tribulation, not out of cockiness or pride, but out of simple faith and understanding that nothing is impossible to God or to those who love Him.  They are thankful for and trust in His providence.

No problem is truly a problem for The Happy Person. Problems are for them solutions in the making, a work in progress: offerings direct from the hand of God wrapped in the golden promises of peace.  These are the people who live in a process of continual dynamism, reinventing themselves day by day, adapting to all that life throws at them, in a “survival of the happiest” sort of way. They are thankful, hence they are happy.  

The Happy People are the people whose conscience is pure and unaffected by the evil to which even they, as frail human beings, at times succumb.  They know that God is bigger than they and that they are forgiven.  For the bearer of a true spirit of gratitude is one humble enough to accept and appreciate God’s mercy and compassion. These people are even thankful for their own weaknesses!  

I am beginning to believe that only those who can find it within themselves to live gratefully can live happily, and that the happiest of people is the most grateful.   I am blessed to know such persons. I aspire to their happiness and gratitude. They inspire me to be a better person, to be thankful and happy in my thankfulness.  Their presence and their spirit give me the courage to forge on, to make the best of all I have been given and all that I have chosen for myself. For these persons I am infinitely thankful!   

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!