"Thanks" Giving

I wanted to take a moment to share my “thanks” as well with each of you. As the month has gone by I have taken the time to read your reasons for thanks, those things you find you are most grateful for, those times when we take a moment to give thanks to others we don’t even know… It is often times like this we forget in our everyday busy lives to stop for a moment and give thanks EACH day and not just during one month or on one day of the year. Today is a day when we take the time to get together with family and friends, neighbors, and strangers to enjoy the bountiful things God has blessed us all with. And so with that I want to count my blessings for a few things as well…..

Today, first and foremost I am blessed to live in a world where I so choose to place God first in my life. I choose that He reigns over everything in my life and it is He who has got me through and answered my prayers regarding many many things in recent times. I was blessed to have been shown a way to God very early on in life but wasn’t until later that I truly accepted Him into my heart and today I couldn’t be without Him.

I am blessed that I was allowed to wake peacefully in my warm home. There are people we know right here on FB that have recently gone homeless, lost their homes to fire, great storms, or have simply lost everything to bad decisions they have made. There are people throughout the world that are living in war torn areas that know of no peace, that live in constant fear for themselves and their children. There are people living on the streets with no shelter, with no way to stay warm, nowhere to hide from the pouring rain. As we walked back to the car today after the conclusion of the Thanksgiving Day Parade we walked past a homeless man laying in a doorway covered in cardboard and newspaper trying to keep warm. My daughter as me why he was there and I took the time to explain that sometimes people do not have a bed nor a home to live in and they have to find places on the streets to live. She ask why he was covered in all that “trash” and I explained it was all he could find to keep himself warm. I was overwhelmed to watch as my daughter processed a sight she had never seen before and struggled to understand.. I took my winter coat off and handed it to the man and said it was all I had to offer at that moment and with a tear he accepted and said “God Bless you.” In recent times I have had a growing feeling to do more, somehow, some way….. Today that feeling was fueled even more.

I am blessed for the food I was able to eat as a “tradition” on this Thanksgiving Day. As we all gather to indulge in the splendor of the beautiful feasts that have been prepared for us to eat we should stop and remember those whom will go without a single morsel of food today. There are children who go hungry every day in our neighborhoods, our country and our world. It’s not just today, it’s every day. The lines at the local food banks grow longer, are in distress with needs for not having enough to give to those who need it most. This past week I took the time to deliver Thanksgiving meal items to a local food bank my church is associated with based on a “Thanksgiving List” the food bank provided. There was enough to feed 5 families. Even then I didn’t feel as if we were doing enough it was still my way of giving during one of the many times through the year that I give to help others in need. For such a small token of sharing, I am blessed to be able to do so

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Today I am blessed to have such loving friends and family. Many times we find ourselves taking a moment to send up a prayer to someone in need, someone in an emergency, someone in need of a little extra love during a time of sorrow. Your quick responses to text, call, email, message, Skype, tweet, and post can take a lonely time and make it overwhelming with love and support. I am blessed to have not 2 but 4 parents whom each fit in my life in their own unique way. I am blessed to have the many siblings I have. Not everyone can say they have 7 siblings and for those of you who can… you know what I mean when I say I am truly blessed to have such a full life of love. There are people today remembering loved ones they have lost in past time and recent times, even as recent as this past week. There are people who have found that people in their lives have turned their backs on them when they needed them most because of poor decisions, addiction, struggles, embarrassment, and shame. There are people who have lost loved ones to overwhelming stress, unbearable loss of a loved one, war, tragedy, and disease. For you I send up prayers every day and ask God to bless you with His grace, His love, His guidance and carry you through these times. Those prayers are not just today, they are every day. My list is every changing, I am constantly adding to and removing from for God does answer our prayers, He does hear our needs, and He does bless us generously when the times are right and were are prepared to accept. So as many of you already know… If you ever find yourself in need of a prayer, a moment to talk, a friend to cry to, lean on, share with, or just need a hug…. I am here for you. I always will be. You are my friends and family for a reason and I will never let that go.

I am blessed to have my freedom. Many of us have come to take for granted what men and women have gone before us and laid down their lives to give to us… that very thing that allows us to live as we so choose, to believe as we so choose, the feel and worship as we so choose.  Freedom isn’t free and it sure doesn’t come cheap. Yes many of us are against war, and many of us may feel differently about our current involvements in conflict but it is at times like today when we need to put all of that aside and think of the many men and women who are currently serving throughout the world, away from their friends and families to protect and continue to allow us to endure our freedom. Without them we could find ourselves living in controlled environments where we are told what we may read or listen to, where we are told what we may believe and worship….. Those “regulations” go on and on… Freedom folks is not for abuse, freedom is a right we have until you do such things in life to lose it.  

I am blessed to be a father, a parent, and roll model for one of the most beautiful little people God has blessed my life with. I am truly blessed to have the greatest gig in the world…. Being daddy to Ms Elizabeth Grace. She makes every day filled with joy, filled with laughter, filled with love. She makes everything go away when times are hard or I fight to hold back tears because sometimes it just gets hard to be away, to miss out on, and to not be a part of those things that mean so much to us. It is times like that when I think there are people in the world who have tried everything they can to have children and are unable to do so due to medical limitations or conditions that do not allow them. There are children in the world that have been passed from home to home and have never know the love of a parent because their parents either abandoned them or walked away from them at some point in their lives. These children are in need as well. If I am ever at a place in life where I will be able to bring children into my home and care for them and love them just as I am able to do for my own daughter…. It will be the first thing I do. I just feel it is something I know I will one day do.

So as you go on with your everyday lives tomorrow when you wake up.. Remember “Thanksgiving Day” may be over but the many reasons for being “thankful” have only begun.. Take a moment each day to count them, remember them, say them, and provide them. God Bless you all.

Veteran's Day

A government titles day of the year where we stop and take the time to recognize the braze men and women whom have given so much, sometimes the ultimate sacrifice, so that you and I may enjoy our freedom every day of our lives. From the beaches of Normandy, to Vietnam, the sands of the Gulf War, to the conflicts of Bosnia, Darfur, and even Libya…. These are just a few examples of where we have taken soldiers to defend what is rightfully ours or also share what many of us have come to take for granted…. Democracy and Freedom.
We often forget during our expressions of the 1st Amendment that so many have fought for us to exercise that right as American citizens. We could be living in places such as China, North Korea, or even Libya where we are sanctioned by our government for what we will read or hear. A choice many of us would not be able to handle. These brave soldiers go to work just as many of us do and bravely take the orders handed to them without question. At a moment’s notice they are ripped from their family homes, their children, their loved ones and sent to places unknown. The order requires that they be expected to put their
lives on the line often times for people they will never meet or for reasons they may never understand why it is they are there…
Some of you will remember when the young men of this nation were not given the choice to serve or attend college or enter the work force…. They were told for whom and where they will serve their country… Those young men went with friends they had known all their lives to fight for this country… Tragedies of war saw many of those men had lost their buddies, their friends, even their own brothers and came home alone… Even today in one of the richest countries in the world those same soldiers are left to ride out the storms of life alone… mental anguish from the trauma they lived that not one of us could bare the weight of… leading them to a life of alcohol and addiction.. The only things they have found to take the pain away for a small period of time. And often times we find it OK to make judgment on why they stand ashamed, alone, dirty, and hungry…
And then there are those brave men and women whom have chosen to take the oath to defend this great country just as members of their clans whom have gone before them.  Sometimes they may find it be the right decision to support family, a means to obtain a higher education later in life, or even that guided path of a lost soul that really knew of no other way to turn… Either way, either decision, either handed out order…… The soldiers of this great nation have given us so much, have ask for so little, and in the end would do it all over again should they be asked to do so.  Yet when they come home, when they have completed their oath… are left to fend for themselves during the next chapters of their lives.. Often times struggling to find a means to support their families.
A veteran of this great nation should never have to look for his or her next meal. A veteran of this great nation should never have to worry about healthcare, education, or a roof over their head. We find today where we give out more to those who do nothing and will continue to stand with that open hand with the expectation there should be more than for those whom have given it all. It’s not just today that we should take the time to remember those men and women…. It is every day that we should be thanking these men and women. Whether it be a handshake and a thank you for your service, a cup of coffee, a grab of the tab for a traveling soldier’s dinner… That small gesture goes a long way.  And that should be just the beginning… So today, as many of us have taken the time to do… I will stand and say thank you to all those men and women for your courage, your sacrifice and your dedication that provides me what I have today.  Thank you.