Friday, November 17, 2017

Gratitude and Thanks



I love this time of year. I love fall, the colors, the crisp air, and sweatshirt and jeans kind of weather. It’s about the only time I indulge in hot chocolate, something I don’t do in winter.

Mostly, it’s the season of my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. I like Thanksgiving more than Christmas. It’s a time of family and food, of recognizing all we have, all we’ve been given, and even those things that we weren’t given. You see, sometimes without those things we’ve wanted and wished for, we’re just better off for not receiving them.

There was a time in my life when I seriously considered entering the priesthood. I felt “a calling” as they say, and I liked the prayer life and the mysticism, the theology and philosophy of it. I thought it was what I had wanted.

From about sixth grade through my early twenties I investigated various orders: the Dominicans, the Jesuits, others. Something held me back and I’m not sure what it was.

Garth Brooks sings a song titled, Unanswered Prayers about a guy going back for a hometown football game. He sees a girl who he had thought once upon a time “was the one” and “the one he had dreamed of” but for one reason or another, they never clicked or ended up together.

Funny thing about time . . .

In the song, Brooks sings:
           
            She was the one that I'd wanted for all times
And each night I'd spend prayin' that God would make her mine
And if he'd only grant me this wish I wished back then
I'd never ask for anything again

I think each of us looks back from time to time and wonders, questions. Sometimes we look back happily, sometimes sadly, sometimes fondly, sometimes in anger. And like in the song, we might bargain, plan, pray, arrange.

And then time takes over and life happens.

Had I entered the priesthood, I wouldn’t have met my wife, Kim. I wouldn’t have had three wonderful kids, Wil, Hannah and Em. I probably wouldn’t have coached a state championship, taught or been a counselor. I don’t think I would have lived in five different states.

So thanks to time and life, my path was altered- happily so!

Gratitude and Thanks!

As we approach the season of Thanksgiving, we can do something a bit differently. Perhaps we can not only give Thanks for all we have, for all we’ve been blessed with, but perhaps we can also be express Gratitude for things that might not have come our way and because of that, a door or possibility was granted to us that we didn’t see or notice because we were so fixated on that one thing we so wanted. It was the absence, the non-acquisition of that thing we had thought we needed so badly that gave way to what we ended up with that made our life so much better, so much richer, so much more blessed.

The lyrics in the chorus of Unanswered Prayers are:

            Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers
Remember when you're talkin' to the man upstairs
That just because he doesn't answer doesn't mean he don't care
Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers

Sometimes we forget that. Sometimes we don’t necessarily know what is good for us. We think we do, don’t we? And sometimes, maybe more than sometimes, we really don’t. Something to think about . . .

Live Your Life, and Make A Difference!

To My Readers:

My fifth work of thriller/suspense fiction Caught in a Web will be published by Black Rose Writing in April of 2018. It is currently in the very skilled hands of an editor I especially admire. When she finishes, I fix what’s needed to fix and then I send it to Black Rose and their editors will no doubt find more for me to fix. The real work of any writing takes place in the edits, something I both dread and get excited about. Yeah, I’m smiling as I write this. As always, I will keep you posted on the progress.

Good News!
I finished the first draft of Spiral Into Darkness and I’m currently doing the editing work on it. It is a thriller/mystery with an attitude.

Please feel free to connect with me at:

Twitter at @jrlewisauthor

Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/Joseph.Lewis.Author                                     

Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Lewis/e/B01FWB9AOI /                                  

If you like Thriller/Suspense fiction, check out my novels:

Available on Amazon for .99 the Lives Trilogy Prequel, Taking Lives:
FBI Agent Pete Kelliher and his partner search for the clues behind the bodies of six boys left in various and remote parts of the country. Even though they don’t know one another, the lives of FBI Agent Kelliher and two boys become interwoven with the same thread that Pete Kelliher holds in his hand. The three of them are on a collision course and when that happens, their lives are in jeopardy as each search for a way out. http://bit.ly/Taking-Lives-JLewis               

Stolen Lives, Book One of the Lives Trilogy:
Two thirteen-year-old boys are abducted off a safe suburban street. Kelliher and his team of FBI agents have 24 hours to find them or they’ll end up like all the others- dead! They have no leads, no clues, and nothing to go on. And the possibility exists that one of his team members might be involved. http://bit.ly/Stolen-Lives-JLewis             

Shattered Lives, Book Two of the Lives Trilogy:
Six desperate and violent men escape. One of them stands in a kitchen facing a 14 year-old-boy with a gun. There are many reasons for the boy to pull the trigger. Mainly, the man had started it all. http://bit.ly/Shattered-Lives-J-Lewis              

Splintered Lives, Book Three of the Lives Trilogy:
A 14 year-old-boy is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. High up on an Arizona mesa, he faces three desperate and dangerous men in hopes of saving his father and his brothers. http://bit.ly/Splintered-Lives-J-Lewis

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Thank you for your comment. I welcome your thought. Joe