Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others. ~Cicero
In honor of Thanksgiving this week, I’m taking a short hiatus from The Adventures of Average Everygirl. Every November, my schedule gets packed with deadlines, plus NaNoWriMo, plus all of the mundane responsibilities of life. This year has been no different.
(In fact, it’s something of a miracle that I’ve weathered through everything with my mind mostly intact. Yes, mostly.)
So, I’m giving myself a breather from the non-essentials.
I love the Thanksgiving holiday with its focus on gratitude. (I also love its secondary focus on pie, but that’s because I’m grateful for pie. Really, really grateful.) I have been very blessed in life, and I am grateful for it.
I’m grateful for the sacrifices of those who came before me, for grandparents and great-grandparents who have left me a legacy of hope and diligence. I’m grateful for a father who provided a stable home, and who serves as an example of faith, patience, and wisdom. I’m grateful for a mother who provided and continues to provide incredible emotional support and who helps refine me into my best self with her guidance. I’m grateful for my three brothers who are good, upstanding men and for my two sisters who are kind and generous women. I’m grateful for all my nieces and nephews, who bring such joy into my life and into the lives of their parents and grandparents.
I have been richly blessed with family. I won’t get to see most of them this Thursday, which is an odd change from past years, but they will be in my heart.
Above all, I am grateful for my Heavenly Father and for His Son, Jesus Christ. I am grateful for their perfect example of unconditional love. I make a lot of mistakes. I’m grateful for a Redeemer who loves me so much that He was willing to die for me, so that I may repent, so that I may improve, so that I may return to God’s presence one day. When I ponder His goodness, a sense of sheer and utter awe overwhelms me.
Truly I am blessed most in this life because of Him.
And for that, again, I am grateful.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!