All of us will spend some time this week reflecting on Thanksgiving's of our pasts.
Of big family gatherings with lots of food and noise or perhaps, memories of a skinny Thanksgiving where nothing was in abundance. Maybe Thanksgiving 2010 is going to be a tough one. Imagine it might be for many considering the many food bank drives around each of us. Sometimes, it may seem that all our hard work doesn't pay off. I imagine that at the first Thanksgiving, they felt much the same way.
Most of us don't so much hard work. The kind that brings a sweat to your brow. If we do, it is in short spurts with lots of ice tea in between. DH had a very physical job. Most days and nights, he is crawling on top of railroad cars in every kind of weather imagineable. When he retires on Dec 31, 2011, he will be 63 and 1/2, too old for a job as tough as this one. Don't know who will replace him, they can't get anyone to help him now. If he was an insurance salesman, he could and would do the job forever but that is not his lot. He will get the job of being with me, that poor man!
Miss M was the epitome of hard work yesterday. She raked her little heart out, not caring that Gage had decided to take a Inside Day. Keaton went out to help and Gage was challenged on his holiday choice so soon everyone was out in the yard but she was almost hurt that two rakes had to be shared among three of them.
That is what hard work is. It is about getting it done. Seeing a job that needs to doing and doing it. Imagine that the first Thanksgiving was much the same way. No going to Costco for ham and dessert. Maybe there wasn't a pumpkin pie. Maybe dessert was dried fruit or worse. Imagine trying to sell that at Thanksgiving 2010!
As you start your week, may gratitude be your beacon. For all that has been and will be in your life. No matter what the landscape of Thanksgiving 2010, you can find Something to be grateful for because it isn't about what you have but about who you are. If you don't like what you see, be grateful that this very minute, you can decide to change what you don't like. Whatever your circumstances, there is always room to be thankful...
