This Thanksgiving...

This Thanksgiving God has me in a place of reflection that feels heavier and more sacred than usual.

I am grateful for the blessings He has poured into my life, family, friends, church, a new granddaughter... but God keeps drawing my mind to something deeper. Something quieter. Something I cannot shake.

I am thankful for the gift of repentance. Not the surface level idea of it. The real thing. The kind that reminds me that God loves me too much to leave me where I wandered. The kind that meets me when my thoughts drift into places that are not healthy or holy. The kind that lets me turn back toward Him instead of drowning in guilt or pretending everything is fine. Repentance is the grace that helps me breathe again.

And as I sit with that, I am overwhelmed by how steady our hope is. No matter how confusing the world becomes, no matter what someone else does or what I have done, hope does not move. Jesus is still where He has always been. He is still strong when the world feels shaky. He is still compassionate when our hearts feel worn. He is still the anchor that holds when everything else breaks loose. Hope is the reason we can keep going even when life feels too loud or too heavy. It is the strength beneath our weakness. It is the light that darkness cannot silence.

I am thankful for the reality of eternity. Not as a distant idea but as a sure future. The knowledge that this world, with all its pain and pressure, is not the end changes the way I breathe. It puts peace in places that used to feel anxious. It reminds me that joy is coming. It reminds me that Jesus wins. And it reminds me that every moment here has purpose because heaven is real and waiting.

And I am thankful that God has given us more time. More time to live with intention. More time to look like Jesus in a world that desperately needs Him. More time to speak life, to forgive freely, to stand firm, to love deeply, and to show people a hope they have never seen before.

Every day we wake up is a gift from God. Not a right. A gift.

Gratitude has been shaping everything in me lately. Gratitude is not soft. It is not cute. It is spiritual strength. It shifts the way we see the world and the way we see God. A heart filled with gratitude cannot stay bitter. A mind focused on gratitude cannot stay consumed with what is missing. Gratitude opens our eyes. It steadies our steps. It softens what has grown hard in us.

But the absence of gratitude carries weight too. Without gratitude the heart grows cold and cynical. It becomes demanding. It becomes blind to beauty. It remembers what hurt but forgets what healed. It loses sight of the goodness of God because it is too focused on everything God has not done yet. A life without gratitude slowly drains the soul.

This Thanksgiving I want to live awake. I want to feel the weight of what God has done. I want to remember that repentance is a gift that leads me home again and again. I want to rest in the hope that does not move. I want to let eternity reshape the way I see today. And I want gratitude to take deep root in me, not just this week but every day I am given.

My prayer is that God stirs something deep in you too.
That you feel His mercy.
That you sense His nearness.
And that gratitude becomes the lens that helps you see how faithful He has been.

Happy Thanksgiving.