Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you have or will take a minute before this holiday is over to stop and show gratitude for what you have. While busily preparing for Thanksgiving dinner I am stopping to express gratitude for all that I have and enjoy. The best way to find joy in my life is when I really notice what I’ve been given and show gratitude. Unfortunately, it seems that when a blessing is at risk of disappearing, I realize just how blessed I was. Once it’s gone, it instantly becomes such a hole in my heart. Then discover just how grateful I should have been.

Show Gratitude For What you Have Before it’s Gone

This year has been one that has helped me to see what I really have been blessed with. I’ve always been an active, healthy person but earlier in the year I found I had severe stenosis at multiple levels in my cervical spine along with a herniated disc. I know this sounds like a bunch of medical jargon but basically my spinal cord was being pinched quite severely. The cause of the pinching was from bone spurs probably caused by a whiplash injury dating back to my teen years. This pinching caused not only some intensely serious pain in my neck and arm but also put me at a very high risk for a spinal cord injury if I didn’t have surgery. And by surgery I mean a cervical fusion of four vertebrae as well as a discectomy. I never imagined that the hardware I owned wouldn’t be for my kitchen cupboards but in my neck instead.

This is what I meant when I said I waited too long to realize my blessings until a blessing was being taken away. Suddenly my good health, that was always just there, was not. My activities, my hobbies, my work, my family would change. Moving on though, I’m doing great and have very little pain. I can almost do what I could do before. And every day I see my scar which reminds me to stop and remember what I really have.

My Blessings

What do I have? I have fantastic kids that make me smile and want to get up every day. I have a husband and family that love and support me. And I have friends who make me want to be better and do better. And luckily, I get to live in the most beautiful place. But the best blessing I have is knowing I have a Savior, Jesus Christ. And every day I wake up and breathe, in and out, and remember how blessed I really am, and as I remember, I smile.