Fullness

We give thanks. We give thanks for our friends, for our families, for our homes, health, jobs, for the food on the table. We stop, and give pause to think about all that we have.

All that I have. Is it enough? A lot? A little? Do I have enough friends? Wish I was closer to some, distanced from others? Am I grateful, truly thankful for the guitar that sits against the wall gathering dust? Or for the college education I finished a few years ago (If my parents ever read this I am thankful to be debt free!)?

Maybe I have too much to even be thankful for it all. It gets lost in the mix, pushed to the wayside when I start dreaming about what is next. And there is always a next.

My stuff, and the quantity of that stuff is constantly in tension. I drive down roads with multi-million dollar homes, and I have walked the streets of developing countries where a roof is all you get.

And these groups they are thankful. Right? If I have everything I want, I will be thankful. And if I live in a world where I have to walk 2 miles to get fresh water, I can be thankful.

It begs the question in my heart. How? How can these 2 worlds coexist. Do worlds of have and those of have not both produce thankfulness? How can I constantly want more, believe that with more I will be more thankful, more blessed, more happy.

When the thankful spirit exists in a world of have not.

I've come to believe that when you live in a world of have not, what you do have, what you get to be thankful for, is the only thing you are granted, and even this can still be taken away.

Life.

Life touches all of us. No matter where you live, or what you have, or how much, we all depend on life...to live, to experience, to grow, and taste the very things that exist around us.

I want to be thankful for this life. For the life of my beautiful wife. My courageous mother. My caring father. For my friends, and for the Life that started it all.

Life is full, and I'm thankful.

benjamin