Fall is the beginning of flu and cold season. I am regularly reminded of my need for a flu shot, hand washing, staying away from others with the flu or colds, and I am encouraged to stay in while I am the germ carrier! By the way, the stores have such great displays for remedies, I can feel guilty not buying something, because, after all, why let a good marketing strategy go to waste.
It hit me one morning, this is also the beginning of the yearly remembrance of gratitude. I know we are to live gratefully daily, but there is a growing awareness of gratitude as November is moving in for thirty days. The retail world doesn’t even recognize Thanksgiving. It goes straight from Halloween to Christmas! I can feel some ugly rising up in me because I love Thanksgiving the most of all days! Please don’t judge me. I love the whole picture of menu planning, shopping, setting the table, cooking, and the people. It is the last day of a good exhale before the focus turns to Christmas as a full time life for the next 30 days. Sorry, I had to get it off my chest.
What does flu and cold season have to do with Thanksgiving? Both are contagious!!! I am drawn to a “thanks giving” hearted person. They are contagious people. The appreciation, kindness, and joy that come from that type person make me want to be more like them. A thanks giving heart knows “this is not as good as it gets.” It is as if they are living with a secret that speaks “I am in a win-win life.” I win because “to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Phil. 1:21)
To spread thanksgiving all year is a great responsibility, an enormous challenge, and an exciting perspective of living. I know life is not one big Norman Rockwell painting, but God calls me to “overflow with thankfulness” (Col. 2:7). My heart eyes are always in need of being reassessed for clarity. The Word is the perfect instrument the Holy Spirit uses to clear up the contagious spirit of my natural heart of grumbling, anger, unforgiveness, fear, worry. He is, thankfully, the equipper and provider of the contagious heart of God within me. “…overflowing with thankfulness” is definitely contagious!
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