Happy “Be Grateful Day”

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

It’s Thanksgiving day. Parades, good food, family, and football…probably one of the last few real traditional holidays that we celebrate here in America. It’s a day that families will gather together from everywhere around the country, and maybe even outside the country. The distance doesn’t matter, we all want to be home for this very special day.

The day means thanksgiving…it says it right in the title. Thanksgiving means to be grateful and appreciative of, not just the physical things that you have, but about the people and relationships that we have.

Are there people in your life, who have always been there for you? Are there people who have supported you, believed in you, and encouraged you when everyone else was against you? Then you should be grateful.

I think this is a day for being grateful and giving thanks, not for things, but for people. We won’t be taking things with us when we exit this world, but we will be taking relationships that we have made with people.

In our society today, and especially around this time of year, we always put the emphasis on what we have and own, and what we would like to have and own. A new car or a new toy, does it really matter? Do we really need another one of those?

At this time of the year when all the emphasis is on what we are getting for Christmas, and what’s going to be under the tree for me, and getting up early and waiting in huge lines on Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, it’s nice to have this one day every year to remember that someone very special in your life.

Maybe it was a mom or dad, who was always there when you needed someone to talk too. Maybe it was a brother or sister that you could always rely on to watch your back, no matter what the situation was. Maybe it was just a good friend, who you could always count on, to come in and make sense of everything, when you couldn’t tell which end was up, or which end was down.

When you go through those tough times in life, and all the smoke clears, you take a good long look to your right, and to your left, and the people that you see standing there with you, these are the people who are your real friends. They are the ones that are standing on the front lines with you, and they are the ones that you should be grateful and thankful for.

Take some time today and remember those individuals in your life. Maybe they are no longer with you, and you miss them so much…today would be a good day to talk and remember those special moments and memories that you had together.

That’s what this day is all about. Thank God for them and remember…you’ll see them again.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.