Being thankful for being used

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Thanksgiving is a really important day for me. Most holidays are “whatever” days where I go through the motions and wonder what all the hype is about. I feel like most of the secular ones are made up and commercialized. Not Thanksgiving, though. Oh, sure, there’s a commercial aspect to it, but I can somehow ignore it and concentrate on the real meaning of the holiday.

Being thankful – and openly saying so on a day like Thanksgiving – is more than just acknowledging that God has done amazingly good things for you. I don’t get preachy, so I’ll try not to dwell on that aspect of it.

So, instead of talking about God, I’ll talk about you.  Here’s what’s in it for you: being thankful is good for you. It makes you more appreciative. It makes you think about what’s good in your life, instead of reacting to all the little things that are bad. Looking at all the things you’re thankful for puts things in perspective, and you need that.

Some of the things I’m thankful for that 299 Days readers will relate to are, first, this amazing community we’ve built up. What a stunning array of human beings you guys are. I could write for pages and pages about all the people who have emailed, PM’d, and met me in person and their stories. The books have profoundly affected thousands of people in extremely positive, life-changing ways. Which brings me to my primary thing to be thankful for: God using me to reach thousands of people and really, really helping them. I said I won’t get preachy, so I’ll leave it at that, except to say: what an honor, the honor of a lifetime (eternity, really) to be used like I have been.