Thanksgiving

Meaningful Lessons Learned Making a Thanksgiving Gratitude List

Munching Almond Roca with my friend, Solomon

Photo by author

I’m a blessed woman — warm, fed, loved.

To spare you a gratitude list, miles long, I’ll trade my pen for a bucket of red ink, striking through everything essentially meaningless — just like Solomon in Ecclesiastes. What remains, is a distilled reflection of what truly matters, the things precious the day I take my last breath. So, farewell to chocolate, antiques, and cute shoes.

Meaningless! Meaningless!
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless- Ecc. 1:2, (NIV)

Although warm, fed, loved, today, I’ve known cold, hunger, the feeling no one loved me.

With that in mind, I’ll start my list with —

Hardships

I’m grateful for all the hardships endured. Sounds crazy, I know. The thing is, I wouldn’t be who I am today without the tutorship of the trials I’ve endured in my life. With each hard knock, I gained wisdom, the kind not attainable from books or word of mouth.

Every wrong turn, door I banged on, humiliation I swallowed, prepared me for…