Thanksgiving

I spent a good deal of years working in healthcare accounting.  I understand cost reports and step-down allocations, volume and intensity based budgeting and reporting, and a lot of other boring things.

I used to think, on cold mornings especially, I wish I didn’t have to go to work, blech, I don’t want to go to work…

My drive to work took me by the Wayside Christian Mission.

Standing outside the doors as I drove off to my job was a line of people, waiting for the Mission to open, waiting to come in out of the cold, waiting for a hot meal, waiting for such small things that I took for granted.

It always made me ashamed that I had complained.

As crazy as my mother was, and as poor as we were, she gave me a clear understanding of how lucky I WAS.

I never went hungry; my mother did.

I knew that however poor we were, I was still luckier than most of the planet.

I feel pretty thankful, honestly, most of the time.  Things can always be better, but things can always be worse, too.

I am thankful for the health of my family and my friends and myself.

I’m thankful for the people who have served me, over time.  I know I am not the easiest person.  I am demanding and critical and I have an opinion on everything.

I have been lucky to be served, and loved, by extraordinary men, and I am grateful.

I have extraordinary slaves now, and my life would be far emptier, far duller, and far more boring without them.

I am lucky to have people around me who care about me, who indulge me, who scamper to get me things and look properly alarmed if I look stern.  I feel lucky to have people who know me and still feel that way.

I am thankful that I feel as though I have made a difference, that I have done good work.  I’ve never been lazy, and I have genuinely always held the community’s best interests at heart.  I’ve done well by that community, I think.

I’m glad to have the first world problems of a house to clean and things to find places for and the mess of a minor renovation from which to recover.  Those are good problems and remind me, as driving by the Mission used to, that I should think far more about the good than the bad, and to remind myself of the grace their is in gratitude.