Thanksgiving

     Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  Its demands are few--food and gratitude.  Food is my love language, gratitude ought to be my lifestyle.  Thanksgiving has been relatively unexploited because neither family nor gratitude can be purchased, the only marketable requirement is food and we have to buy that on a regular basis anyway.  In keeping with the season, media is full of the generic gratitude considered acceptable in a post-Christian nation.  One story told of a man who transformed his life by sending a thank you card to someone in his life every day. This is a nice gesture that would certainly improve the sender's attitude as well as the recipient, but that is not the point of Thanksgiving.  Another article was about a woman who gives thanks to, not for, inanimate objects, thus removing the possibility of expecting appreciation in return. This may have changed her life but it probably had no effect on her latte or fabric softener.  In spite of her intentions, gratitude toward inanimate objects benefits only the giver. 
     I am so thankful that God had the inexplicable lapse of judgement to choose me to belong to him.  I do not have to waste thankfulness on lesser things like my prosperous nation or the turkey, I get to thank the God of the universe.  God would still be good if he had never done one thing for me but because he is God, he has given me everything.  Like any form of worship, the value of praise is in its object.  However humble the blessing and insignificant the giver, my praise goes to the most awesome being in existence.  And one day a year is set aside just for that--Thanksgiving.