This is the time of year when all our families should be stirring with excitement and anticipation for the holiday season, filled with festive traditions that bring us joy while creating lasting memories.
Thanksgiving offers us the time-honored opportunity to gather with loved ones and celebrate all we are thankful for, cherishing moments together with hefty homemade meals filling our stomachs while leaving lingering scents in our decorated homes.
But this year is so very different. As with every holiday that has come and gone since this Pandemic hit, instead of reveling in these significant celebrations, we settle in to accept their vacancy and mourn the loss of what was once ours to have, while scrambling to figure out how to salvage what little we can.
It seems the world is crumbling into a heap of debris and we are all buried under it. With the racial unrest and political upheaval, to the natural disasters and the ongoing pandemic, we’re all just trying to dig our way through the rubble, desperate to come up for air.
It’s tiresome. Living in a constant state of stress and strain, attempting to manage our lives in the middle of all this madness. It’s wearing our wills down and weakening our strength to keep fighting to survive each day, constantly picking up the pieces of our lives and attempting to put them in some semblance of order.
Thanksgiving is a time to embrace all that we are grateful for and it’s hard to feel thankful about much of anything. But I propose that now more than ever, we must climb out of the wreckage of whatever ruins we find ourselves in and stretch our necks high to look hard and long for the things that are good, the things that still hold the great power of positivity, because paying our utmost attention to those things will, in fact, save us all.
It saves me every day.
Continue reading this piece on Moms of Tweens and Teens HERE.
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May the power of gratitude fuel your fortitude and nourish your hearts during this holiday season.
Virtual hugs to all!
So true, Chris! Gratitude is everything right now. Feel good stories and focusing on the small joys are what get us through. So nice to hear from you at your blog!
Oh, Lisa, I sure miss you, my dear friend!! Thank you SO much for reading this and yes, that is KEY to our mental health and well-being, for sure. I hope and pray you are hanging in there with everything!