Thanksgiving is once more upon us.

I know I have been through 64 of them, and 58 of them I remember.

I remember Thanksgivings growing up. My mom would burn the turkey every year, the dinner rolls were always burnt and black on the bottom, so everyone would cut off the bottom and after dinner, you would have a bunch of blackened hard bottoms of dinner rolls on everybodies plate. The gravy was always lumpy with chunks of flour not mixed in well enough, and always hated getting flour in my mouth. (to this day, I still will not have gravy on anything)

Cooking was not my mother’s thing; it didn’t matter. We still ate; we never went hungry (not for the lack of food anyway), and my dad and two sisters, we all survived.

Before we sat down and dove into the dry burnt turkey, of course, Dad would always pray over the meal, but before that, each one of us had to say what we were most thankful for. Being a young boy and even into my teen years, I thought that was always weird. Now that I have lived over half my life, I understand why my parents did it.

Now with both my boys and their daughters, we share Thanksgiving dinner together every year, although some years it’s not always on the day of Thanksgiving.

I could write for days about all the things I’m thankful for, but the best of them all is being totally forgiven by God.

My salvation is the most important and precious gift I could have ever received, and I am so thankful that I serve a loving, most powerful God.

I am far from being a perfect person. There are plenty of times I’ve cried out to God, saying, “I’m not worth Your love and effort.”

God always showers me with His grace and understanding. He is quick to forgive me and always loves me, no matter what I have done.

How can you not be thankful for a God like that?

“Thank You, God, for being MY ONE TRUE KING!”

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. May God’s peace always abide in you.