A THANKFUL HEART

How can I express what thankfulness I have within my heart?

Where does it even begin to make sense?

I realize that it never started with all the extra things we collect in this life.

It didn’t begin with the little material things

that we become accustomed to having—

yes, they are nice, and sometimes useful—

but are they truly needed?

Thankfulness must go deeper than what we can hold.

Are we thankful for the day?

For the breath that wakes us again?

For the love that remains even when life changes?

Are we thankful for the upcoming season—

as if each new season guarantees a future—

or for the start of New Years,

when the year ahead is not promised,

only hoped for?

The new year does not arrive because we deserve it.

It arrives because grace allows it.

We enter another year not by achievement,

but by mercy—

a mercy that carried us through

the moments we weren’t sure we would survive,

the challenges we didn’t see coming,

the nights we prayed for morning.

And so thankfulness begins right here,

in the realization that we made it.

That time has allowed us another chance

to love,

to grow,

to believe again.

True gratitude is not reflected in what we own,

but in the miracle

that we are still here

to hope for what comes next.

That is where thankfulness lives—

in the heart that recognizes

another year is not a guarantee…

it is a gift.