What are you reading this for?! It's Thanksgiving! Go spend some time with your family stuffing your face, watching TV and maybe playing a few games. Sheesh.
Since you are here, I may as well finish what I started with my final Thank you for this Thanksgiving week. But I think instead of saying thank you or telling you something I am thankful for, I am going to instead issue a challenge. As you go through this day, I want you to dig deep and think of a single defining event that you are thankful for. I could be good or bad, it just has to be something that is a defining moment. One of those moments that you look at and realize that without that event, nothing you have today could be.
Something you maybe needed to happen to set you up for today. Maybe it taught you an important lesson that lingers with you and shapes nearly every decision you make. Maybe it brought a person into your life that changed how you lived it and is still bringing about these changes. Maybe it is an event so simple that you are astounded in just how much it has influenced who and where you are. Maybe it was a moment of stupidity, or maybe a moment of genius. Just dwell on it and you may be surprised what your mind brings up.
I am not asking you to share it, although you may if you so choose. This is just something I think can be a real help to you in finding who you are. This shouldn't be easy. It shouldn't be something that is on the top of your head. This is something so deep in you that you have nearly forgotten it. Granted it may be something you think of often, but you probably won't recognize it as the life changer it became. I only say this because as I was typing this I had a dozen thoughts go through my head. I discarded each one as I found an event before it that led to that event.
First I jumped to my marriage, but I realized that without my early entrance to the military it would never have happened. Then I realized that my entrance into the military would never have happened had I not been where I was. As I traced back this thread, I found my defining moment to be something that occurred before I started school. Back to something I had little recollection of. You see, when I was born, my father was a dairy farmer in southern Iowa. I see the surprise in some of your eyes, since most of you only know him as a plumber and electrician. It's true. He owned a dairy farm in Ringgold county Iowa. He had a sawmill on this farm as well. My memories of the farm are very vague. I only really remember a white house and a big bulldozer. The defining moment came when I was about 3. That year, dad went bankrupt. As I said, this is all something I pieced together from conversations with dad and other things I have read. The bankruptcy lead dad to move to Nevinville, Iowa and take up plumbing and electrical work to pay the bills. Due to dad's business and the needs of the family, it lead him to move us 2 more times, the final move to Shannon City, Iowa and the East Union School District when I was in second grade.
Why do I call that my defining moment? My entire life hinges on it. Without that moment, I would have grown up a dairy farmer and sawmill operator, thus I never would have learned all I did about plumbing and electrical from my father. My wife would never have met my sister in junior high and thus would never have known me. I might never have been disillusioned by the church I grew up in and thus not had the experiences I did, not all of which were good, but all of which contributed to my understanding and have since strengthened my faith. I can't begin to list all the other things that hinge on this one event. I am sure it was painful to my father when it happened and I know it couldn't have been easy, but I am thankful for it as it is key to who I am and what I have become. Maybe I went back to far, but this is what I came up with over the past thirty minutes while I wrote this. I am not done thinking on it and maybe I will add to it later, or maybe not. But it does beg the question, how much of our lives is based on stuff we can't even comprehend when it occurs?
What about you? What is your event? Think on it and thank God for it. Maybe you'll find something you haven't thought of for years.
Have a happy Thanksgiving and let everyone around you know just how thankful you are for their influence in you life. Thank you all for reading this, knowing you read it is what allows me to keep writing.
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