Thanksgiving Ponderings

· If you woke this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who won’t survive the week.

· If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation ...you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

· If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.

· If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of the world’s population.

· If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish somewhere, you are among the top 8% of the worlds wealthy.

· If your parents are still alive and still married...you are very rare, even in the United States.

· If you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful, you are blessed because the majority can, but most do not.

· If you can hold someone’s hand, hug them or even touch them on the shoulder, you are blessed because you can offer healing touch.

· If you can read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.

· Have a good day, count your blessings, and pass this along to remind everyone else how blessed we all are.

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“We recognize that everything noble and praiseworthy comes from God. This way of seeing our Father in everything makes life one long thanksgiving and gives a rest of heart and gaiety of spirit…Someone has said, “God’s will on earth is always joy, always tranquility.” And since He must have His own way with His children, into what wonderful green pastures of inward rest, and beside what blessedly still waters of inward refreshment is the soul led that learns this secret. If the will of God is our will, then… we reign in a perpetual kingdom. He who sides with God cannot fail to win in every encounter; and whether the result shall be joy or sorrow, failure or success, death or life, we may under all circumstances join in the Apostle’s shout of victory, “Thanks be unto God who always causes us to triumph in Christ!”

Hannah W. Smith