The Adventure of Life: Thankful: The New Way to Live

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. Sure, I love Christmas time and just about every other holiday, but there's something about Thanksgiving that makes it stand out over all the other celebrations. It's the good food with friends and family; the crisp autumn air, the colors of the season, the lack of pressure to give gifts and receive them. It's the focus on being thankful for the things you have, instead of looking to get more, that's so special about Thanksgiving.

At New Years I gave up making the traditional goals that most people make when I heard about a new way of setting goals. It's where you pick one word that sums up what you want to be that year, then everyday you can start new on the goal of being that word for the day. Last year my word was Fearless, but this year, I chose to have the word Thankful.

There's this book by Ann Voskamp (click for her blog, it's amazing) that I've listened to on audio book; it's called One Thousand Gifts. It's about her journey to find God's peace and joy in the present moment by making a list of one thousand things that she's thankful for. Her story is so inspiring and I would even go as far as to say that it's changed my life; her challenge has sent me on my own mission to let go of my fear and find God in the blessings of the present.

I started my own thousand gift list when I first started listening to the book. So far I'm only to 523, but every once and a while I remember to add to it. Since this challenge goes hand in hand with the Thanksgiving season, I put on a few items from my list below.

22: Crisp black lines of my glasses