Good Afternoon!

Happy Thanksgiving Week Friends!!

I hope you have a restful, thankful week planned. I hope you get to see the family you want to see and avoid the ones you want to avoid (I get it, I’m usually one people want to avoid). Here’s a little story and some thoughts to guide your thoughts this week.

I just got back from Pigeon Forge. We went up to spend some time with family. I have this great knife set that my wife bought for me when we were still dating. I love it. I have especially used the chef’s knife A LOT and it has dulled up some. As you may know, there is a great knife shop in Sevierville and they do a really good job sharpening knives. So I took the whole block with me this weekend and got them sharpened. Well, I was attempting to cut potatoes on Saturday and the knife in the AirBnB was TERRIBLE. So I went to the trunk and got out my sharp chef’s knife. It was so much of a difference I had the other folks come try it to compare. In that moment, I was so thankful for my sharp knife. I even said to myself, “Wow, I am really thankful those folks have honed their craft at making blades sharp.”

Then, I went a different direction

How blessed are we that I can spend moments of my thoughts being thankful for a sharpened knife? Not running water, not electricity, not the knife itself. Not safety. Not medicine. Not the ability to get medical care if I cut myself on that knife. Not my kids. Not the fact that I am in a rental cabin in the beautiful Smokey Mountains. Not the fact that I can just jump in my car and drive up there. ALL these things that I took for granted to the point where I am comfortable enough and live in enough luxury that I can be thankful just that my knife is sharpened–and by someone else, no less.

Wow. What a revelation. We have it made y’all. And look, I know that everyone reading this still has problems. We still have issues and still deal with bad stuff. But to be comfortable enough to celebrate something as trivial as that IS luxury.

I challenge you this week to make a thankful list. And not one like you might normally do. Not, your family, your house, your car. Those things are too easy. That’s just going through the motions. Find 25 things that are such a part of your everyday life that really are blessings that are, realistically, luxuries simply because you live where you live and you are blessed like you are blessed. Stuff like this:

• I am thankful that one of my biggest decisions of the day is where to get my coffee–at home, at coffee shop A, Coffee shop B, Coffee shop C or at the office.
• I am thankful that I live in a place that, despite some obvious exceptions, is very very safe. People obey the majority of the traffic norms and laws. People generally respect each other enough to at least not murder them, etc.
• I am thankful that I live in a place where entire TV networks can be devoted to cartoons, or gameshows, or sports recaps. They don’t have to always be broadcasting warnings and news to keep us safe. We can occupy our time with very, very trivial things.
• I am thankful that I can sit down with my Christian friend, Muslim friend, atheist friend and spiritual, earth worshipping friend and all have coffee together
• I am thankful that I have enough clothing to not worry about temperature fluctuations
• I am thankful that my biggest annoyance today may be a spam phone call or 7
• I am thankful that the sandwich shop might accidentally put too much mayo on my sandwich or leave off the pickles. At least there is a sandwich shop that has too much mayo and pickles to leave off.

You get it. Dwell in the mundane and see where we are truly blessed.