This Thanksgiving Day, Make it Really About Appreciation!

Our country and the whole world have been going through some of the hardest times in our history since last Thanksgiving. This is not to lessen any other horrific events of our country and world, but to say that we in the United States may have been living in a dream like state for the last few decades. We have had prosperous times for many, and yet, many others have been enduring extreme hardships at the same time. Many of us have had so many blessings and opportunities until some of the few powerful and rich went too far on their paths of greed, causing everything to come tumbling down. A great many more of us have been wakened and given a second chance to get things right. We have been given a chance to realize how lucky we are to have been born and live in a country where second chances and opportunities for a better life are there for us, if we believe in ourselves and help others stand up with us.

We have seen our country go through recent years of challenges to our very constitution and our individual rights. We have seen what can happen when more of us vote for what we believe in, as opposed to when we sit home and allow others to decide our fate. We have gone through a year of knowing that if our country was not as great as it is, we would have endured the exact personal tragedies that thousands did in the Great Depression, when most families had no work at all, and no unemployment compensation to help them. We know what this last year could have been like.

There has been a lot of fear and finger pointing and witch hunting going on over the recent few years, but we are still here in the U.S. We are still the strongest country, with the most tolerable government of each person's individual beliefs and cultures. There is a reason why people all over the world still want to come to the United States to find a better life for their families.

Our country is not perfect and really, it doesn't pretend to be. Our country still has that same Constitution and Bill of Rights that give each of us the freedom to say and think what we believe, as long as we don't cause harm to others.

This has been a really hard year and this Thanksgiving, even though we have not made our way out of the hardships, let us each take the time this Thanksgiving Day to think not about what we DON'T have, but to think about what we DO have!

Take a good look at your family and tell them what they mean to you. Tell them how blessed you are because they are in your life. Tell them how grateful you all should be, because you were all born in this great country. Tell them how fortunate you all are to have such brave, and yet caring, special heroes in this world, who help others and stand up for their freedoms and rights.

This year is an excellent and special year to appreciate...and give thanks!